The Commander of Grimm
by sweetcupcake2234
Summary: after killing the nevermore ruby found a girl named Ez on top of the cliff. what sort of crazy things will happen with the commander of all Grimm on their side? even if she rarely uses any of her Grimm powers. holding a branch into battle, Ez is undefeatable. what will happen when she meats the cheerful team RWBY?
1. Chapter 1

Ruby shouted as she ran up the glyphs her new partner had made against the side of the cliff, continuing to drag the massive nevermore Grimm along with her. Firing the gun in her scythe and using her semblance to gain more speed.

Her team members watched from the base of the cliff in awe. Ruby reached the top of the cliff and beheaded the bird shaped Grimm with a final swipe of Crescent Rose. The body and the head fell down the cliff while tuning into crimson rose petals, ruby's signature form of purification.

"that's my sis" yang shouted with a smile. Her hand out and her thumb up.

Ruby was about to go back to the edge of the cliff and wave to her makeshift team below when she spotted a glimmer of white behind the trees. Being the curious fifteen-year-old that she is, she went to see what it was. After a little bit of digging in the undergrowth she found a girl, not much older then she was.

The girl was wearing a green cloth wrapped in a cross around her chest, and black pants with a lot of pockets, blending in perfectly with the surrounding vegetation. Her hair as black as night and skin as white as freshly fallen snow. ruby could see white specs contrasting in her black hair, they looked like Grimm Armour hair clips.

ruby thought she was sleeping so gently nudged her to wake her up. When she didn't wake, ruby proceeded to violently shake the girl. That didn't work either, so ruby decided to pick her up and take her to the teachers who might know something about the girl sleeping in the Grimm infested forest without a visible weapon nearby.

The soon-to-be team RWBY watched as their youngest member walked away from the edge of the cliff and appear some minutes later holding a girl with a green cloth wrapped around her.

"and who would that be" Weiss asked when she spotted what the crimson and black dressed hunter-in-training was carrying.

"don' no" answered the yellow haired brawler "but I think were about to find out." As her sister jumped off the cliff and landed not so far away from them.

Ruby placed the girl on the ground and waited for her friends and teachers to turn up.

* * *

Ozpin had been watching the entire fight between the students and the nevermore with interest and was intrigued when they had trapped it against the wall and beheaded it.

"miss rose is very creative," he told Glynda. He was met with a humph for a response. "I wonder what she's doing at the top of that cliff though" as he watched one of his students throw a bunch of sticks and leaves behind her, like a dog digging a hole in the ground.

Glynda glanced at her boss at his comment and saw a very rare sight. Ozpin face was one of shock and surprise. It took a lot to surprise the headmaster of Beacon academy and whatever ruby rose had found had done that very easily. Now interested, Glynda grabbed her own scroll and watched the live feed video playing on it.

Ruby rose was carrying a girl about her age with the palest skin. Whoever this girl was, had managed to spread surprise and shock in the most stone faced and calm person Glynda knew.

She was even more curious when Ozpin said, "let's get her off the students hands."

The two teachers jumped from the cliff they had previously thrown the students off and ran to join the said students.

* * *

Ruby has been crouching next to the black-haired girl she found on top of the cliff and poking her face when her friends arrived and crowded around the girl.

"Who is she?" the white-haired heiress asked while staring at the girl trying to force her awake with her eyes.

"I do-" the scythe user started until she was cut off but a very exited older sister of hers.

"I wonder what weapon she uses. Or even if she does use a weapon. What if she's a citizen and she not meant to be here?" yang asked without waiting for an answer. "hay Ru were did ya find her?" this time waiting for an answer.

"I found her up there in the forest." Ruby supplied, pointing to the top of the cliff she had jumped off.

Blake just looked at the girl in interest. Mostly in her smell. The girl smelled of Grimm, not as if she had recently killed a lot and got their blood on her, but it was more like that was her stench. It made the cat Faunas very fascinated and cautious of the girl.

The four girls continued their conversation for a few more minutes before the headmaster and combat teacher appeared literally out of no were.

The headmaster walked up to the group of girls and said, "I'll take her for now."

"do you know who she is?" ruby asked the grey-haired professor suddenly protective of her find.

"yes. And because I know who she is I will be taking her, miss rose." the professor said.

Ruby calmed down "oh, ok." She stood up and stepped away from the girl she found. Allowing Ozpin to pick her up and throw her over his shoulder.

As Ozpin turned away to leave, Weiss asked a question they all wanted to know the answer too. "headmaster, who is she?"

The hunter paused in his stride. Turned sidelong to the girls and said, "her name is Ez. Anything else about her, is not my secret to tell." Then he left, closely followed by Glynda.

* * *

Later that day team RWBY became an officially register team in beacon. They had a dorm room assigned to them and were currently unpacking. When they discovered they had no room for all their stuff _and _the beds they turned them into bunk beds, much to the objections of the Schnee heiress. They finished setting up their room to discover it was dark outside. Deciding they should have a proper meal for dinner the team went to the cafeteria.

When they got there, they were waved to a table by a very energetic Nora of team JNPR.

They ate their separate meals in silence for a good ten minutes.

"so, what did you find on the cliffs that brought the attention of the headmaster?" Pyrrha asked the quiet team sharing the table.

"wait, how did you know?" asked ruby, not remembering them next to her when she came down from the cliffs.

The former gladiator was happy to supply "after we defeated the Death stalker, we watched ruby jump down the cliff carrying something. Then the headmaster appeared and took whatever it was you found away." Pyrrha paused after telling her simplified story. "and we were wondering what it was that made the headmaster of beacon come personally to grab."

Ruby answered "I found a girl. She has really really white skin and very black hair. Her names Ez. We don't know anything else about her." ruby ended sadly, "but we were planning to go ask Ozpin tomorrow after lessons. Wanna come?" she cheerfully asks.

"YES!" Nora, who had been quiet though out the entire conversation so far, yelled as loud as she could.

her loud affirmation startled everyone else using the cafeteria and got a rude comment from a certain racist bully. He got a hammer to the head. a certain rabbit Faunas was pleased with this.

Ren then told her "we can go as long as the team leader say so."

This made Nora stare at the team leader while hopping on her toes, waiting for the 'yes' she knew was coming.

"we can go and see this mystery girl team RWBY found." Jaune said as waved his hand is dismissal.

"WO-HOO!" Nora yelled out, just as loud, if not louder, then the first exclamation. She then returned to her stack of pancakes, wondering if she could _borrow_ some ice-cream from the kitchen.

* * *

Ozpin had a lot of things to think of. After all, he ran the best huntsmen school in the world. The professor thought of many things most other would never be inclined to even consider. But Ozpin did it as to not only a prevent many casualty's in further Grimm attacks but also to stop wars before they start. He was responsible for saving countless lives and stopping countless Grimm. even if it was part of his job description.

But then Ez appeared. The problem and the solution.

He knew it wasn't all her fault and she was just doing what she had too. But some of the worst of it was her fault and many people had died by her hand, whether it be directly or indirectly. She was responsible for some of the worst wars in the continent. And the largest Grimm massacres in history. He knew this because he watched it with his own eyes, thanks to the curse the gods gave him. He lived the battles she caused accidentally or not. She was the thing he fought against.

Ez was the Grimm. And Ozpin was the huntsmen. And it was his duty to slay her.

But the thing is, Ozpin didn't blame her. she was always forgiven and almost always forgotten. No one remembers. Over time, even the scariest dangers fall into myths and legends. She had just done it countless times.

For Ozpin however, she was a friend and an ally he could trust above all else.

There was only one thing left to do.

Ozpin raised his cane and pointed it towards her head, took a sip of his coffee, and fired a dust enhanced shot into her skull.


	2. Chapter 2

**Shout out to CrepeButter for being my very first follower/favorite. Thank you and all the other people who have read my first fanfiction. Now onto the story.**

* * *

_Ozpin raised his cane and pointed it towards her head, took a sip of his coffee, and fired a dust enhanced shot into her skull._

Or it would have if her skin wasn't so durable.

Ez had been sleeping in the deepest place in her mind, enjoying one of the pleasant dreams she gets rarely. Something about flying, even if she can do that anyway.

Ez woke up with a start. A massive ache on her forehead alerted her to danger. In seconds her body had already healed itself. But Ez knew if something attacked her, she should probably find out what it was before it attacked again. Then she could go back to her sleep and continue her dream (hopefully).

Her eyes opened before the rest of her body responds. She was not in the forest where she fell asleep. To her it looked more like a cage with a fancy roof. She could never understand humans and their need to put themselves in containers of rock.

This roof however reminds her of a certain interesting human she met a while back. A human who always had a calm face but a never pausing mind. His name was always different, But she found it funny how his name always started with an 'O'. not that she can say anything about names. After all, she hadn't changed her name for the last 8 billion years. He also like the colors dark green and black together.

After watching the machine-like roof for a couple of seconds her eyes darted around the room trying to discover where she was and if she had to stay. Ez could see a very big desk with a glowing rectangle on it, a big fancy chair behind the desk, a very nice view of lots of glowing rectangles in the distance, and a solo table with a light up thing on top.

She was laying on the floor, and surprisingly, it was comfy. She didn't want to get up yet.

There was also a human man staring down at her with a cup in his hand. He was holding a very familiar metal pole in his hand that she just can't place. It looked like a cane but not, at the same time.

_Where have I seen that before? _She thought to herself, wondering how she could forget something. She prized herself in having the best memory ever. So how could she forget an item like this cane.

"hello Ez, do you remember me?" the man said.

Now he knew her name. how did he know her name? she been asleep for a century at least, so how did this human know her name? _maybe it's the interesting human_. She thought. She wanted an answer and she wanted it fast. So Ez did what Ez did best. She asked bluntly.

"are you the interesting human?" Ez said.

The man looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "I believe that is what you called me." He answered.

_so, it _was_ the interesting human._ She thought, happy with herself for getting it right. Now she remembered where she had seen the cane before. The interesting human had always carried this metal pole around, slowly changing it to make it better over time.

Ez put her hand behind her back, roll onto them and springs herself up. Standing at Ozpins shoulder.

"why did you wake me up?" she asked the interesting human, curious to the world around her.

The man took a sip of the liquid in the cup he's holding. "because one of my students found you in the forest."

"huh." She said, obviously thinking of something. "I thought I was well hidden." Ez muttered under her breath. "oh, What's a student?"

"it surprises me on how little you know about most things." The interesting man said.

"well, the stupid humans keep changing their languages and stuff. It gets so annoying sometimes." Ez crosses her arms and pouted.

Ez walks over to the desk in front of the window and sits in the big fancy chair she spotted before.

"so, are you going to answer my question before or after I have to repeat it, interesting human."

"a student is someone who learns things from someone else, and my name is Ozpin not interesting human. Please use it."

"fine." Ez says, rolling her eyes and stretching the 'I' to make it long. "can I become one of these students?" Ez asks Ozpin knowing the answer before she asks it.

"why would you want to become a student in my school?" Ozpin asks confused by why the most powerful being in all of existence wanted to learn from a bunch of humans. Not that he showed it.

"because you said I didn't know everything." Ez replies bluntly. "also, what's a school?"

"a place where many people learn." Ozpin answered. After a thoughtful pause Ozpin said, "I will allow you too learn at beacon, but I am going to put rule number 64 and 153 into effect."

"ok. I can follow them." The pale grimm in human form leapt out of the chair and walked to the door. At least she knew what that is. She opened the door then closes it again and before walking back to Ozpin. "where am I supposed to go now."

Ozpin just sighed and mumbled under his breath "I'm going to regret this aren't I."

"I heard that." Ez nonchalantly answered.

Professor Ozpin didn't say anything as he walked out of the door motioning Ez to follow him.

Glynda had dealt with many things in her life, from the most annoying teens to some of the more powerful grimm. Never needing to use too much force or energy, and never has she ever met a child quite the same as the one in front of her.

The child was clueless, dumb and clearly stupid. For instance, who in their right mind would eat a container of red dust. The most destructive and dangerous dust out there. Glynda is currently trying to make the girl spit it out, to little success. After a lot of failed attempted of hitting her very hard in the back and punching her even harder in the stomach to get her to spit it out, Glynda gave up.

Ozpin had given her the child ruby rose found in the forest. The headmaster of beacon told her to 'introduce her to the scroll, dust and weaponry.' Glynda thought it would be an easy hour of simple instructions. After all, who didn't know what a weapon is used for, or how to use the most common item in the world. But apparently this child here didn't know. She knew what a weapon is, but she refused to use one, suddenly deciding she was too strong to have one.

She even picked up a stick laying in the garden and said, "if your forcing me to use a weapon, I chose this." This made Glynda very furious, but she gave up, and went on to the next subject she had to teach this poor girl.

When Glynda had been making Ez's scroll and asking for personal information, the child had answered in the most ridicules ways possible. When asked for race, between human or Faunus, Ez had said grimm. Who would say they're the monsters their training to fight? And how in the world was she over 100 trillion years old? If she was going to lie and make this difficult for her, she could have said something more plausible.

Finally, she had finished making the scroll for Ez, most of it was made up of assumed info as Ez definitely wasn't helping, but they had gotten there in the end. So Glynda handed the scroll to the child and expected her to know how it worked. And thankfully nothing happened.

Until the child decided to throw the scroll to the other side of the room complaining it had beeped at her and was going to blow up. It took another half hour just to explain to her how the messaging system worked and that it wasn't going to 'blow up' on her.

Then to top it all of she had eaten the red dust. To be fair, she did ask "is it edible?" first. sadly, she didn't believe Glynda when she said it wasn't, and ate it anyway.

Now Glynda is complaining to her boss about this child who doesn't have any sort of common sense over her scroll. She even blushed when Ozpin laughed. He apologizes straight away but couldn't hide the chuckle that escaped from his mouth. "Ez most certainly wouldn't have any sort of common sense, given her past. But she will pick it up fast enough, so please keep teaching her privately until you believe she can participate in actual classes."

Ez was sitting across the room spinning on a chair. Even if humans loved putting themselves in stone cages, the seats were good enough to make up for them. She could hear the conversation happening in hushed tones across the room and had decided to no intervene. Ez had startled and annoyed the teacher a bit too much, even if she only told the truth. Now she just wanted to go to her room and figure out how this scroll thingy worked.

Thankfully Glynda took her to a room after her talk to Ozpin and whispered "I deal with too many kids nowadays" as she left.

Ez glanced around the room. There were four beds in the room, a bookshelf, a desk (not as fancy as Ozpin's, but it will do) a pair of clothes on one of the beds and a door to the left. Hidden behind the door was a small bathroom; shower, toilet and weapon cleaning area. (not that she will be using it). All in all, it was a rather good room. Even if it was fitted for four people. Ez wondered why that was.

The first thing she did, was push all the beds together in a corner and make a wall of pillows, not that she had many. She then promptly flopped on them, grabbed her scroll from one of the many pockets in her pants and played around with it all night.

She was a grimm, she only needed to sleep once in a while. But unlike most other grimm, were _once in a while_ means every couple of days or so, for her, it meant every couple of years or so.


	3. Chapter 3

Ruby woke to the sound of her sister's snoring. You would expect her to be used to the load noises her big sister makes in the night, especially after 15 years of it. But no, yang's snoring woke her up on the best of days.

Remembering what happened yesterday and what she found in the emerald forest of the testing grounds, she thinks, _can't wait meet her personally. _The weapon enthusiast also wondered what type of weapon the black-haired person used.

Ez could use; a rapier, like Weiss, fits her build; she might be a brawler like yang, not likely; a spear like Pyrrha, possible; a sword like jaune, also possible; or any other weapon. The list is endless, and her curiosity was killing her. she had to know.

After sitting in the dorm room for ten minutes watching everyone else sleep (its not creepy) she was bored. So, she did the thing any reasonable fifteen-year-old would do. She woke everyone up using a very annoying whistle.

Weiss did not appreciate it, throwing her pillow at the scythe user while mumbling word under her breath, ruby did not want to know what she had said. Blake made angry noises and stared at ruby as if she were a Grimm needing extermination. And yang slept through it all, still snoring loudly.

The Schnee heiress then turned on ruby "what caused you to make such a racket so early in the morning!" she yelled. Blake glared at ruby, opinion the same as Weiss.

Ruby laughed ignoring the accusing gazes she got from her teammates. She went to yang and crouched next to her bed. "YANG, SOME WEIRDOS IN THE HOUSE AND HES ATTACKING ME!" she yelled.

Yang instantly jumped out of her bed while mumbling "werd da Weirdo that's hurting my sis!?" she was obliviously still half asleep; her eyes weren't concentration on anything, her hands were badly put up into a makeshift fighting stance and her words were jumbled and not quite English. Dressed in her tank top, one sleeve fallen down, and pants, she looked ready to go back to bed.

Yang's eyes came into focus and she stared at ruby, joining the other two with her accusing stares. "why did ya wake me up at," she checked her scroll, "5:30?"

Ruby just cheered that everyone was awake now. The three tired huntresses in training knocked ruby very hard on the head. Awake now, they got dressed and headed down to the cafeteria when it opened. Team RWBY met up with team JNPR, who seem to like early mornings.

"good morning!" and overly exited Nora called out.

"morning." Ruby responded. A grumbled response came from the rest of team RWBY.

Nora and Ren were both eating a massive stack of pancake, Nora would steal one of Ren's every time he looked away. Yang, Jaune and Pyrrha were all eating pumpkin Petes. Ruby was eating a plate of strawberries, while Blake was eating a bowl of fish. Weiss was eating a bowl of healthy cereal.

"how you guys can eat that stuff in beyond me." The white-haired heiress said.

After they had eaten the two teams split up and went to class. Ruby wasn't paying much attention to the teachers as her mind was else were, but thanks to Blake she got though the day.

Ruby had been thinking as to who Ez might be. So far, her best guess is that she was a huntress of some sort, going by the fact that Ozpin knew her personally. Other guesses include; she's an alien and Ozpin is an alien too, she Ozpin's daughter/friends daughter/ cousin of some sort, unlikely, but she still thought it, or she might be a citizen that Ozpin knew, possible.

"do we knock?" Pyrrha asked. she had met up with the rest o her team and team RWBY in front of professor Ozpin's office. They had been standing outside the door for the last five minutes debating whether or not they should knock first or just charge in.

"it is polite to knock before entering a room, so well shall." Weiss said, "also why am I here?" trying to disguise her curiosity. She didn't want the rest of her team, or the school for that matter, to know that she was interested in the girl ruby had found. That sort of behavior was left for her irresponsible leader.

"because your part of TEEEEEAAAAM RWBY!" ruby yelled out, fist bumping the air above her.

"yeah." Agrees yang.

"well, I'm in TEEEEAAMM JNPR!" yelled out Nora joining in with ruby childish nature.

Ozpin opened the door to his office. "come in," he said to the group. When all he got were blank faces he explained. "I could hear you all through the door." Everyone's faces turned into 'O's of surprise. Quickly hidden when they realized they had been rather loud.

Walking into the office Weiss hit ruby and Nora on the head. "learn to be quite." She said, shaking her head in disgust that she knows these two. The two childish teens fist bumped and giggled behind Weiss's back.

"team RWBY, team JNPR, what do I owe you're the pleasure of coming here?" Ozpin asked, suddenly seated in his fancy chair behind his desk. His hands were on the table, fingers interlocked and his chin resting on top.

Ruby was the first to answer. "were here to meet Ez. The girl I found in the forest. We were wondering if she had woken up and if we could talk to her."

Ozpin raised his eyebrow in confusion before hiding it behind his wall of calm. "Ez has decided to join Beacon academy. From what I heard from Glynda, she is in the dorm room next to yours and will be joining your class." The answer surprises the two teams, but they are happy, nonetheless.

"So, we can finally meet the mysterious Ez?" Blake voices for the entire group. Saying the most words Weiss has heard from her.

"yes, miss belladonna, you can." Ozpin says professionally.

"the group turns around to leave when Ozpin says some strange advice. "she may be a strange person, but once you get to know her, there is really no one as a better friend. Or a worse enemy."

The group take a minute to process what he said. Nora put her thumb up reassuringly, "we were ganna be her friend anyways." Ozpin nods at this and waves his hand for them to leave.

* * *

"well how about that, Ez was next to us the whole time." Yang said leading the two teams back the way they came and toward the dorm rooms. Her hands were in her pockets and her hair was loose, of cause.

"wish I had known that before we went to the headmaster's office." Ruby said, sad that she hadn't even met her next-door neighbor. Her emotions lightened up when she thought of meeting a new person who might be able to fight.

The group reached the door of the room they supposed was Ez's. Weiss, being the only polite one who knows manners, knocked.

There was no answer.

Annoyed that she was being ignored, Weiss knocked again.

Still no answer.

"maybe she's asleep." Jaune supplied.

The door opened a crack. "why are you hitting the door. I don't think it was being bad." A voice came out, questioning the behavior of the group. Her eyes darted between the eight students gathered around her door. Pausing only on Blake, Ruby and Jaune.

Ren was the one to answer, "we were knocking on the door, not hitting it." He tried to explain.

"what's knocking? And who are you?" she asked. then her arm came out of the tiny gap in the door way. "and why do you have silver eyes?" she said, pointing at ruby.

Everyone was confused by the question. Ruby stumbled, "I have silver eyes because. . . am I not allowed to have silver eyes? What do my eyes have to do with anything?" She said, holding her hands over her eyes to hide them from the world. Yang got angry with the girl for hurting her sister's feelings.

The girl taken aback by the answers, opened the door more. "I didn't mean to upset you. I'm very bad at reading human emotions. I'm sorry." She said waving her hands in front of her, as if that will fix all the problems. Yang calmed down when she realized it was an accident.

Now fully in the hall way Ez couldn't escape the eyes of the students. She had gotten rid of her cloth and was wearing a dark green long-sleeved shirt, black pants with many pockets, two Grimm-armor like hair clips, socks and a school hat. The school hat didn't quite fit with everything else.

Her eyes were pitch black and scary, when she noticed they were staring at her eyes she put her hands over them and rubbed them a lot. When she was done, she opened her eyes. They appeared normal, crimson eyes with a black center, the outside was white, like a normal eye. But they had all seem her pitch-black eyes and know this was just a disguise. They didn't question it, believing it to be a secret she didn't want to tell.

Ruby looked at her with an open mouth. "that." She started, Ez flinched. "was." Ruby's voice was getting louder by the second. "SO COOL!" she yelled, scaring the other people who were using the dorm.

Ez was not expecting the responses, she fell over in surprise. She had expected the human girl to claim her eyes were creepy and that she was am abomination, just like the rest of the humans. She was even more surprised when the other seven people nodded their heads in agreement

"EH?" she said. Not knowing how she was supposed to respond. Humans can be so confusing sometimes. Yang grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. Humans are definitely strange.

"how did you do that. You rubbed your eyes and it changed color, that's so amazing. I wish I could do that. Show all my friends a different colored eye every day. I could confuse the teacher so much." Ruby said with sparkling eyes.

"its not that great. Its only a small illusion, if I let my mind wander too much it will come undone." Ez said while rubbing the back of her neck. "oh, I almost forgot. Hello I'm Ez." She said doing her introduction in the middle of their conversation. The group replied in kind.

"hello Ez, I'm Nora."

"I'm yang."

"Blake."

"the names Jaune arc, short, sweet, roles off the tongue, ladies love it."

"okay." Ez said, ignoring the extra bits.

"I'm Pyrrha."

"I'm Ren."

"My name is Weiss."

"and I'm ruby." Finishing off the names. "were in team RWBY and there in team JNPR." She continued, pointing at the separate groups.

"okay." Ez said again. "would you like to come inside?"

All eight students clambering into the room. They all noticed the four beds pushed together in the corner straight away. The green cloth she was found in laying on the bed. She sat on the bed facing them. "The beds comfier then the floor." They all joined her on the bed, sitting in a circle. It was a lot better then they thought it would be. Three of the blankets were in the gaps between the beds and the last one was sitting across them all, ready for use. But it didn't seem as if it was used.

"so, what's knocking." The girl asked, still waiting for and answer.

Weiss looked at her in confusion. "you really don't know?" she said voicing everyone's question.

"that would be why I'm asking," Ez said looking at her.

Ren sighed. "knocking is were one asks to enter a room without having to say anything." Ren thought this was very similar to looking after Nora, explain the simple things.

Ez's eyes lit up in recognition. Her mouth making a cute 'O' shape.

They people in the circle started asking questions. The boring stuff, like favorite color, animal, type of Grimm and stuff. She answered as honestly as she could. As in, likes all the colors, doesn't have a favorite animal, and favorite Grimm would be herself. None of them believed she was a Grimm, so she didn't push it, just let it leave their minds. They forgot after a while.

After an hour of chatter, Ez took her scroll out of her pocket and showed it to Pyrrha, who sat next to her. "what does this do?" she asked innocently.

It took Pyrrha a while to recognize what she was looking at. When she did, she looked between it and Ez. "that's the play store. You use it to buy games." She said hoping her explanation was enough. It wasn't.

"what's a game?" Ez asked even more confused.

Weiss looked at her in confusion. "did you live a really sheltered life or what."

Before she could answer yang joined the conversation "wait, wait, wait. Are you saying you don't know what a game is?" she asked the dark-haired figure.

"yes"

"and that you've never played a game before?" yang continued.

"yes" Ez agreed again.

Yang looked around at the other faces in the circle, everyone else picking up were this conversation was leading. "would you like to play a game?" yang finished.

"yes" Ez replied shortly again. She hadn't missed the look she gave the rest of the group, and she was getting slightly afraid of what the blonde had in stall for her. Ez afraid, how silly.

Yang promptly grabbed Ez's elbow and dragged her out of the room. Closely followed by the other seven students. They were ready for a computer battle royal. All nine participants gathered in team RWBY's dorm. The screen was out, and the game was on.

Yang handed Ez a controller. "That button's attack, that one's block, that one's combo, that one's doge, that's jump and that's duck." Pointing to all the buttons individually. Giving Ez bad instructions. The game started.

In under 2 minutes, yang had destroyed Ez's character. The next thirty minutes consisted of everyone taking turns at utterly defeating Ez. Though she did hold her own on the last battle against ruby. But she still lost in the end.

When the battle royal was over, Ez's face was one of pure shock. "Who knew humans could make such unfair games. This would never have happened in real life." She thought.

"do ya wanna bet?" yang said. Confused as to why yang had heard her thoughts until she realized she had said it out loud.

"oops." Ez said. "whats bet mean?"

"your really don't know anything do you?" comments Ren.

"I do know stuff, just not in this language. You speak weirdly." Ez retorted.

"you know more then one language! That's awesome. Which other ones do you speak?" ruby said eyes sparkling again.

"it would take too long for me to tell you the names of all of them, but as a number I know about 438 different languages. Most of them aren't even used anymore."

"how is that even possible. In recorded history there is less then 100 languages in all of remnant. How would you know more than that?" Weiss complained. Pointing out the obvious flaw in her logic.

"you don't have to believe me. But I am telling the truth." Ez said putting the controller in her lap down. "so, what does bet mean?"

"we need to get you a dictionary." Said Jaune, putting his head in his hands.

"what's a dictionary?" the ancient child asked.

"a book with all the words and their definitions in them." Blake supplied.

Ez's eye lit up. literally. It surprised the group that someone would not only be interested in reading the dictionary but will enjoy it and look forward to it.

"were definitely getting you a dictionary." Said Ren

Yang, who wanted to fight Ez, spoke, "we can do that later, for now I want to know; can you fight? And can we spar?"

"I can fight. And I will spar with you if you want. But if we are, then, to make it fairer, it will be all eight of you vs me." Ez said calmly and evenly.

"what!" yelled Weiss, angry that she wasn't treated as a threat.

Yang was amazed that someone would want to go up against all of them, especially together. "how is that fairer?" she asked.

"because I'm stronger then you." Ez said bluntly staring yang in the eye to prove her point.

"your on!" Nora yelled, getting fired up.

"but I don't want to hurt you." Pyrrha said.

"don't worry, you won't." Ez replied. Somehow that hurt Pyrrha's feeling even more than before.

"lets do this." Said ruby, pulling her arm back to her side.

Ren and Blake just sighed. Yet again they were being dragged into their teams antics.

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**FAVORITE/FOLLOW ****REVIEW**

**please review my fanfiction. i really have no idea if you like it or not. tell me how i can make it better. **

**this is my first fanfiction so i hope you like it. i wish my authors note doesn't sound so cheesy, (why do i write this way?)**

**and thats all for now. bye**


	4. Chapter 4

**WOOHOO! i just got fifteen followers - proceeds to do a crazy dance. i know that's not a lot, but its a first for me. so i'm happy. thank you to all the people who have favorite/followed. i have had one review so far, and i'm hopeing for more, but beggars cant be chooses. well, on to the story. i hope you like it.**

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Ez stood still with her hands behind her back.

Her opponents were all in lowered stances, weapons out, ready to fight. Professor Ozpin sat on the sidelines as he was the judge of this match. Professor Oobleck sat in the seats around the arena awaiting the fight. A small crowd of third year students had gathered to watch.

Previously team RWBY and team JNPR had challenged Ez to a duel. As expected from her, she quickly accepted. Duels sounded like a lot of fun. When she had asked Ozpin what they were, he had said "they are when you fight someone without trying to kill them, it is for fun or for learning." He then agreed to let her fight in the duel as long as she didn't hurt or kill anyone. Otherwise known as rule 64, he had put that into effect as soon as she joined beacon.

So here she was facing off against the two teams. At the start of the fight, when their aura was displayed to the audience and the teachers, there had been a slight problem. Ez had no aura. Her indication bar started out as grey. Most students thought this was a technical difficulty with her scroll not reading her aura correctly, but Ozpin and Ez knew the truth, she was a creature of Grimm, and Grimm don't have auras. However, the two fighting teams got a confidence boost from this as they were fighting not only an unarmed opponent, but an opponent that doesn't have enough aura for her scroll to pick up. Their confidence plummeted when both teachers placed their bets on Ez. How could she win? Did the teachers know something they didn't?

"begin." Ozpin said, thus starting the match.

Ruby charged the girl, still not use to fighting in a team, Ren and Blake circled around to hit her from behind, Weiss created glyphs to trap and confuse her, while Nora, Pyrrha, jaune and yang followed ruby with a forward charge. Ruby's initial attack was dodged, Ez then continued to get close to the scythe user and deliver a kick to her ribs, sending ruby's aura straight into the red. Ez's hands were still behind her back.

"ruby rose is out." Called Ozpin.

Weiss seeing her leader out and her glyphs not working, undid her semblance and readied a fire shot with myrtenaster, her rapier. At this point yang and Pyrrha had reached their target. Yang jumped from above while Pyrrha when below. In a normal battle against normal people, this would be a great tactic to confuse and surprise the opponent. But this battle wasn't normal, and it most definitely wasn't against a normal person. Ez grabbed Pyrrha's spear, twisted it out of her hand, sending her off balance, Ez kicked Pyrrha on the back, then nocked yang's fists away with the spear. She threw the spear into the ground and punched yang 'softly' in the stomach, rocketing her out of bounds.

"Pyrrha Nikos and yang Xiao-long are out." Professor Ozpin commented.

Ren had reached Ez now and swiped stormflower across her back. Or where her back was supposed to be, instead he found he cut the air, searching for the unbelievably quick foe, he spun around. Ez was behind him, as he had guessed, he brought up stormflower to block the inevitable attack, and closed his eyes for the impact. Nothing came. Ez had circled around him again and delivered a solid kick to Ren's side. Nocking him to the edge of the ring and sending his aura to the red.

"lie Ren is out." Ozpin said while watching the one-sided bout.

Nora was the next to face Ez. Magnhild arched above her head preparing for an overhead strike. It never made it. Nora was struck down with a backwards kick straight into her face. The force of the kick threw her up, she even grazed the roof a little. On her landing her aura hit red, her eyes had turned into swirls, her world spinning.

"Nora Valkyrie is out." Came Ozpin's call.

Weiss's attack, now fully ready, shot forward to the unsuspecting Ez. Just before the mass of fire and lightning hit her, Ez jumped up and did a perfect back flip, landing behind Jaune, who was still running towards the place she should have been, and hit him squarely with an open palm on the back. His aura went red. The fire shot raged towards the out of bounds after missing its target. Weiss changed her stance and flicked her fingers up, the speeding ball of fire did a 180 turn and started following Ez. Seeing she was being followed, Ez ran to Blake. Blake saw Ez run towards her but didn't have enough time to dodge or more out of the way, so she put her arms up to block. Ez ran around her and stood behind Blake. Making her a shield for the ball of fire and lightning. Blake's aura went orange. Just before Ez finished her off, she noticed something off about the stealthy girl, she smelled of "cat?" Blake's eyes opened in terror before being hit on the back of her neck. Blake fell unconscious to the floor.

"jaune arc and Blake belladonna are out." The monotone voice of the headmaster said.

Weiss, seeing she was the last one standing, readied her weapon for an attack and sprinted towards Ez. Ez turned to face her and watched as the girl in white charged forwards. When Weiss reached her, she grabbed the blade of the sword and pulled it out of her hand, exactly the same as she had done for Pyrrha. She stabbed it into the ground and shot a palm strike to Weiss's stomach. Weiss flew a few meters and landed. Aura depleted, and in the red.

"Weiss Schnee is out. The winner of this match is Ez." Ozpins called, ending the fight. A roar of approval spread across the crow, liking the fight they had seen.

The contenders were disheartened by the fact that they hadn't even lasted ten seconds against their new friend but were happy nonetheless by the aspect of a brilliant fighter among them.

"hay." Ez said to the two teams, "that was a lot of fun, can we do it again sometime?" giving the eight a questioning glance.

ruby smiled "sure." Giving her the thumbs up.

Everyone else agreed with the cheery leader of team RWBY.

"now let's get some lunch." Yelled the overly exited Nora. Yang was dragging the still unconscious form of Blake.

"hay Ez, when do you think she'll wake up?" yang said after dragging her partner all the way to the cafeteria.

"about now. I tried to hit her lightly so she will wake up faster, but I think I hit her harder then I planned. Either way she should wake up soon." Ez said looking at the cat faunas.

"oh, okay." Said yang, shrugging her shoulders, and digging into her freshly baked pie. Nora, obviously, has pancakes.

Weiss was sitting next to the pale girl. Sad that she was beaten so easily, "how did you do that?" she asked.

"do what?" Ez asked, confused.

"how did you defeat us so quickly and easily?" Pyrrha clarified.

All the other mini conversations stopped on the table so they could listen to the answer. Ez was contemplating what to say to them.

"I am stronger, and you are weaker." She said matter-of-factly.

The eight stared at her blankly, questioning her sanity.

"we know that. What we want to know is how." Weiss said helpfully, but irritably.

Ez looked Weiss in the eyes and contemplated her answer for a few seconds. "wasn't that how?"

"no!" said the heiress, smashing her hands on the table. "can you tell us how you beat all of us up so badly without seeming to make an effort."

Blake, who had been unconscious at the table up until then, woke up suddenly. Her first reaction was to jump away from where she was, draw Gambol Shroud, and be at the ready for any attacks. The two teams were not expecting it.

Seeing that she was surrounded by people who won't hurt her, Blake sheathed her weapon, sighed and said "sorry." She then looked at Ez and noticed the bemused look on her head. Ez flicked her eyes to Blake's bow and smiled. She knew her secret, is what that gesture said. Blake was terrified. Still only in the first week of school and her heritage was out. She was definitely going to have a talk with her later.

Blake left to go get some food and came back a few minutes later with tuna noodles. As she ate, she stared at Ez, trying to force the girl to tell her everything she knew. But not now. Not in front of her team.

"the way I defeated you. . . because I'm _really_ strong?" Ez offered. Eating a bit of her pie.

"NO." yang and Weiss yelled at the same time, "that's no better them before!"

Ez looked very sad at this point. Her head dropped and she looked at her hand. "oh." She said simply.

Weiss gave up. She has had enough trouble today, and she wasn't going to add to the list.

Ruby was very interested in the weapon Ez could have used. She hasn't seem one in Ez's hands the entire time she has known her, (even if that is only three days.) she had been burning with curiosity since the first day. So, she asked. "hay Ez. Some people have hidden weapons, and I haven't seem you use one since well, um, forever, and I was wondering if you, um. urg, this is so hard. Ez." She said, suddenly very serious.

"yes." Said Ez completely lost.

"did you use a weapon."

Ez caught on. She now knew what the red hooded human wanted. "no. I don't want to kill you guys." Then after a pause. "and Ozpin said I can't use it against humans. Something about being too powerful or whatever." She took another bite of pie.

"so, you do have a weapon?" ruby continued the interrogation.

"yes." She said simply, ignorant about the interrogation she was under.

Ruby's eyes suddenly light up with sparkles, when she asked the next question her voice was one of pure joy. "can I see it?"

Ez needed some time to think about that one, in which she ate the rest of her pie. "ok." She said slowly. Mistrust laced within her words. Only the most observant would notice it. As it stands, only Blake and Ren heard it. Everyone else was oblivious to it.

* * *

Ez entered her room followed by eight students. Or, more specifically, the members of team RWBY and team JNPR. They had asked her if they could see her weapon, and she had obliged. Even with a little mistrust for the humans.

"so, where is it?" Nora asked eyeing the room with curiosity. She noticed a branch on the desk, _wonder how that got there._ She thought, before forgetting entirely.

"here." Ez said, picking up the green cloth ruby had found her in.

"how is that a weapon?" ruby asked, completely dumb folded.

Ez giggled a little, "no, this isn't my weapon. This is more like a sheath." She said while wrapping it around her waist. It resembled Pyrrha's clothing with the bit hanging out. Hers was just green.

"what can you hide in that?" yang asked, also confused.

Ez giggled again. She did that a lot. "you'll see." She said, smiling. Ez finished tying the cloth around herself. She heard a few gasps escape her new friends' lips. Not that the green cloth was amazing on her, even though it was, but because as soon as she let go, a sword completely formed of darkness appeared at her side. The room dropped a couple degrees thanks to the sword. The darkness leaked out of the sword and circled around a smiling Ez.

Blake whispered, "what is that?" everyone heard her, after all, there was no other sounds coming from the room.

"its my weapon." Ez said drawing it to show it off. She waved it around herself and twirled on the spot.

"wow." Said ruby as she watched the display.

"I'm not done yet." The pale girl said. She shook the sword and it grew longer. The blade turned into a handled and a new blade sprouted from the top. Now she was holding a scythe above her head. To the audience, she was the grim reaper, threatening with a smile to take their lives. Well. Until she shook it again and it turned into a short sword with a ribbon coming off. Much like Blake's Gambol Shroud. She dropped it and caught the ribbon, before swinging it in a circle to her left. After that, it tuned back into the sword it started off as, Ez put it away in it sheathe. It was still there but not as threatening, or leaking darkness.

ruby's eyes lit up like before. "can I hold it?" she asked, thoroughly interested in the shape changing blade.

"no!" said Ez sternly, turning side on, hands raised, ready for a fight. Ruby's posture fell as she realized she had said something wrong. Yang moved to stand in front of ruby, protecting her from the angry girl.

"she was only asking! You don't have to get so angry with her." yang said. "what's so bad about that."

Ez stood up from her fighting stance, reading no hostile intentions from the girls. She waved her hands in front of her, "no. no. no. that's not why I don't want her to touch it. I'm not angry at her. its just if anyone other then me used my sword, it will be more likely they die then their opponent."

She was met with blank faces. "huh?" Jaune said. Utterly confused like the rest of the students.

Seeing that they need further explanation she provided it. "my sword is made out of pure darkness, because of this, it eats away at the aura of my opponent. The downside of this is that it eats the aura of the user too. If you were to grab or hold my sword, it will absorb all your aura and you'll never be able to use it or your semblance ever again. That is, if your still alive. I use it because its too dangerous to just leave lying around. And I was born without aura or a semblance." Ez said, explaining the powers of the sword.

Her explaining was received with wide eyes and open mouths. "yep. That's definitely over powered." Said yang.

After a while the group of eight left. As it was a Thursday, they went to their afternoon classes. Ez just entertained herself with the things in her room. She spent most of her time breaking the sharp edges off the branch she was going to use as a weapon. It had a lot of them. When she had done that, she went on to smoothing it out, so she doesn't get splinters every time she grabbed it.

Now she was armed with a sword of darkness that she's not allowed to use, and a stick.

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**PLEASE REVIEW. **

**how do you feel about her overpowered weapon and the fight scene? i'm definitely proud of the fight scene. **


	5. Chapter 5

Blake had a lot of emotions spinning around her. one of the more prominent would be curiosity. Closely followed by anger and fear. She was curious as to how Ez found out about her heritage, and who Ez was in general. Angry because she let someone find out about her faunas' nature, and within a week of school no less. And finally, fear. She was afraid of what the black-haired girl could do with that knowledge. She was afraid she would tell her team, and Blake would have to face the music, it being good or bad. She doesn't know Ez well enough to even guess at what she will do. But she knew one thing. Blake had to sort this out tonight, before anything could happen.

Blake lay awake in her bed while the rest of the team slowly drifted off to sleep. Painfully slowly, as the minutes stretched out to hours. Finally, when she was sure team RWBY was asleep and wouldn't wake up, she climbed out of her bed and creeped to the door, being very careful not to make a single sound. She was good at it too, after all, she had lived in a world where that was her job. Sneak around quietly for the white fang and gather information. Not that she was apart of the Faunas cult anymore.

Opening the door to her room and closing it just as quietly, she walked down the hallway. Before opening the door to Ez's room, she took a deep breath, hardening herself for what might happen.

She entered the room.

The lights were still on. it was 1am, she saw, looking at the clock on Ez's desk. The room was the same as it was when the two teams had come in to inspect her weapon. The girl wasn't on her bed sleeping, actually, Ez wasn't anywhere. She wasn't in the room. Her green cloth was on the bed, as if It was thrown away and unnecessary. A stick was carefully put on the desk, looks like she been softening the sides down and breaking off the smaller twigs.

Blake glanced around the room, looking for any sign of the girl. Where had she gone?

The only clue she found was the open window. An obvious clue, but it was the best one. Blake looked out the window, using her enhanced night vision to look around the courtyard. She couldn't see Ez. Before she jumped down to go find the runaway girl, she heard a voice.

"Blake. I'm up here." The voice was above her, on the roof. It was definitely Ez's non caring voice of oblivion.

She looked up and saw three bedrooms between her and the roof. She left the room and went up the stairs, so much easier then climbing up the window. Blake assumed Ez climbed out the window but wasn't sure. It was Ez after all, she could've done both.

Ez was sitting on the edge on the building, feet dangling below her. she turned her head to look at Blake.

"so, I'm assuming you have a reason to be awake?" she probed, happy to not be alone tonight.

Blake stood still, staring at the girl in front of her. she was going to take a big risk, but she was going to do it. Blake reached up and grabbed the bow on top of her head. slowly, she pulled it off, revealing her midnight blue ears, tipped with a white fuzz at the top.

"how did you know." Blake asked, all emotion gone.

Ez tilted her head. "how did I know what? Also, I like your ears, midnight blue suits you." Ez spun around and sat cross legged, facing the faunas.

"how did you know about my faunas heritage?" Blake explained, still void of emotion.

Ez stared at her blankly. "before or after you took the ribbon off?" she asked the obvious.

Blake was growing angry, but she didn't let it show. Her voice might have betrayed her, but only the most observant would hear it. Little did she know, Ez was a very, very observant person. She picked up on this anger as soon as it started. "before."

Ez smiled, "I knew about your heritage the moment I saw you. I figured the cat part out when I got close to you in the sparring match. I have nothing against the faunas, if anything, I proffer the faunas over humans. There so much easier to get alone with."

Blake sighed, seeing that Ez meant no harm. Her wording was weird, but the message was clear. 'I'm sorry if I did something bad, it wasn't my intention.'

She forgives her but had to make it clear. "don't tell anyone about my heritage." She said with venom. Ez tilted her head.

"why?"

Blake grew scared, if Ez was going to tell her friends about her, she could ruin her entire life. Yang and ruby seemed okay with the faunas, and probable won't be much of a problem. But Weiss. Weiss was the heiress to the Schnee dust company, the company that treats faunas as slaves, the company that overworks and kills the faunas for fun. The company that killed her friend. She didn't what Weiss to know about her, or her past. If would be the end of everything.

"not that I'm planning on doing so, I'm just curious as to why." Ez continued without pause.

The shock was evident on Blake's face, not only did Ez know about her secret, she will keep it as well. This was a dream come true. a human who wouldn't just sell her out and would try to hunt her down. Not that they do that were everyone can see them. They do it discretely, not to attract any unwanted attention.

Ez saw the emotions that flashed through Blake's eyes. Knowing what they are, but barely understanding them. She knew Blake was feeling joy, anger, hate, hope and more, but had no idea how each of them affected her. If there was one thing in the worlds she didn't understand, it would be emotions. She can fake them, act like they affect her, but in reality, she just doesn't have them. Eventually, she started faking it to an extent where she felt something. Not an emotion, just a something. In a very sad place, where humans and faunas alike would become sad, depressed, and lonely, she would only feel an itch, like she was accepting that others might feel something here. But for her, it was nothing. Never was. So, when she saw Blake emotions, she was only confused.

"will you really keep my secret?" Blake asked hopefully.

"sure. Once you tell me why." Was Ez's frank response. "and what's so bad about your cat ears? I think there pretty." Ez said motioning for Blake to sit next to her on the edge of the roof. Blake joined her. for the next five or so minutes, they both just stared off into the distance. At night, vale looked very nice, the city glowed, and the streets were alight. The surrounding forest, off in the far distance, was a dark green and brown. It looked calming, hiding the Grimm that lurk within.

"when I was a child." Blake started. "I was apart of a group called the white fang. We were protesters for equality for the faunas." Ez summoned her dictionary, looking up the words she didn't recognize, in this strange language they were speaking. Luckily, the white fang got a section of the dictionary all to themselves. It was the tourists guide part. Blake didn't notice this. "at first it was just protests, but then it turned into violence. And it was working." Her face become happy, before becoming very sad. "except, it was out of fear. It wasn't what I wanted, this wasn't what I had been fighting for my entire life. This was just pointless bloodshed, murder and crime. Not the best, when your working towards equality." She waved her hands in the air in front of her to prove her point. "so I left." Her summarized story ended. "but we never got equality. If anything, it made it worse. I didn't want to walk around the streets of vale, or anywhere for that matter, showing off what others see as a curse." She looked at Ez, who hid the dictionary, "I want to be able to walk around places and not be looked down upon by the people I live by. I hate it!" she shouted the last bit. After a couple of minutes to calm down Blake continued. "I love my ears, and eyes, and heritage. I regret my past, and I don't want to be like the humans. But I wish for a world we can live in peace with the humans. Not a world of war and death." Blake finished, trying to keep her tears quiet. Sadly, for her, Ez noticed them.

"why are you crying? Have I done something wrong again?" Ez took a breath in. "was it something you said? Why are you crying over your past?" the oblivious girl asked. "your past is been and gone, what's done is done, you can't change what's happened, so stop moping on it." Ez said, providing some help for a change. "are you sad about who you are?" she asked. this one, she was expecting an answer.

"NO." Blake yelled, standing up. "I don't hate being what I am. I just. I just want to be myself."

"what's stopping you?" Ez asked, trying to help the person she met a week ago.

"everyone! Weren't you listening?" she asked, tears streaming down her face faster.

"nope. That's not right. Not everyone." She smiled. "try again."

"what!" she stammered. "the humans. The ones who hunt and kill us!"

"nope. They can only do that outside the cities or in the cover of darkness. What's stopping you from being yourself here, in the safe reaches of beacon?"

Blake took a step back, realizing what the girl in front of her was saying. She breathed in, calming herself down, and sat down again. The were quiet for a long time.

"myself." Blake finally answered.

"yep. Yourself. You, and only you, can stop yourself from being, well, you. The humans don't make it easy, but they can't stop who you are." Ez pointed at her chest. "I won't tell your secret. As long as you promise me you _will_ tell your friends. And I don't care if you tell them in a day, or a months' time. But you will tell them. Got it." Ez poked Blake in the chest, before turning back to the view of the city.

Blake sniffed. Happy with her new friend. "got it." She said. Resolving herself to the task.

Now she just needs to wait for the perfect time.

The two sat there. Watching the city in the night. Eventually Blake asked. "so how did you know? You explained when you found out. But not how."

"Humm." Ez thought, "when I got close to you in the dual, I smelt a distinctive cat smell. By this point I already knew you were faunas, so I figured you were a cat faunas. Of cause, you could have been faking it with a whole heap of cat smelling deodorant, but my guess was proved right when you took off the ribbon."

"but," Blake continued "how did you know to begin with?" at this, Ez giggled in triumph.

"you might not have noticed, but the faunas have a very specific type of eye. They are a dead giveaway." She paused for a bit. "neither the humans or the faunas have noticed them. Don't think they ever will either."

Blake accepted this for a bit. "then, how did you know?" Ez started to answer but before she could say a word Blake butted in. "actually, are you a faunas? It would make so much sense."

Ez did a double take. "no, I'm not a faunas." She clarified.

"then, what are you? Your vision in this darkness has to be as good as mine, and I have night vision. I don't know of any humans that can see like this, or smell for that matter, so I wanted to know. Just what are you?"

Ez looked at her. smiled and said, "well that's because I'm a Grimm."

Blake stood up from her wonderful seat on the edge of the roof, and yelled, "how can you even say that! You're here to learn to defeat the Grimm, so how can you just say that!" she walked, obviously angry, to the door. Before closing the door, she whispered, "if you're going to lie, come up with better ones."

Blake snuck back into her room and fell asleep.

* * *

"Ez, you left your green cloth in your room. Aren't you afraid someone might steal it?" asked Ren over breakfast. They had been chatting for the last ten minutes until Ren asked that. The other students at the table then noticed that Ez had forgotten her weapon. Again.

"not really." Ez said, taking a bite out of her scrambled eggs.

"I can understand you not worrying about it here, but what if something happened or you went on a training mission. What if you forgot it there? You should always make good habits to start with, for these things." Ren advised. Giving good knowledge before eating a bite out of his giant size stack of pancakes. Nothing like Nora's, but still a big pile.

"I still wouldn't be worried about it."

"but didn't you say it was like, 'super dangerous in anyone's but your hands' or something?" ruby said, joining the conversation.

"I did."

"so why aren't you worried about it?" Blake said, this time.

"because it can never be stolen." Ez said. Finally looking up from her eggs.

"huh?" was the only reply

"how does that work?" the knowledge thirsty heiress asked.

"well, I can do this." Ez raised her hand to her shoulder height. In a swirl of darkness, the green cloth just appeared out of nowhere. Literally.

"WHAT!" ruby shouted. "THAT IS SO COOL! How does it work?" her eyes sparkled.

"umm. I can just do it." Ez provided. Horrible information, as usual.

"is it your semblance?" yang asked, curious.

"no, no, no. not at all. I don't have an aura, and I don't have a semblance. I told you this yesterday." Ez said.

"oh right." Said yang, scratching the back of her neck. "theeeeen, what is it?" she said

Ez thought for a second. "Magic?" she asked

The two teams looked at her blankly. "you're supposed to know this!" yelled Weiss. She was sick of the horrible answers Ez keeps giving them. Why does she have to be so cryptic and annoying all the time.

"I'm sorry." Ez said, "but this language is annoyingly hard to learn. I don't know how to explain it in terms you would understand."

Weiss sighed. If she had a reason, she guessed it was okay. But only for now. She will get her answers! Eventually.

"I still don't believe you know more than two languages. two might be acceptable, but any more is just unbelievable. There are no records on most of the lost languages, so it is just stupid that you would know more then that." Weiss said with satisfaction.

"but I do." Countered Ez.

"fine! So, if you know all these languages. Prove it. Talk to someone in your 'other languages' that you know." Weiss said smugly.

Ez thought for a bit, then glanced at Blake. No one noticed. "I can do that. Just let me grab someone first."

Ez got up from the table and left her half-eaten eggs behind. She walked up to a table of third years and seemed to be chatting with them for a bit. She came back, followed by Velvet, the rabbit faunas third year.

Weiss was very confused. "why would you need her? and how did you know she could speak a different language? You've only been here for a couple of days." she almost made a racist comment but didn't. her pride as a Schnee prevented her from doing so. She didn't see the small anger in Blake's eyes either.

"I knew that she knew a different language because she's a faunas." There was a small pause before continuing. "that made sense, right?"

"yes." Said ruby, "but why would her being a faunas have anything to do with languages?"

Blake answered this time, catching on to what the pale girl was up to. "the faunas have a different language for each of the different kinds. The dog faunas have a language they share with the wolves, no one but them understand them, the cats, big and small, have a language as well, the fish types have two, depending what ocean they originate from. And so forth. No one but those faunas are meant to understand them or even know of there existence." She paused after she relied what she had said. "or that's what I heard from a faunas friend of mine." She amended.

"exactly." Said Ez. "and humans can't learn them, at all. but luckily for you, I know all of them. And no, I'm not going to explain how." She then turned towards velvet, the helpful but confused rabbit.

"so, what do you want me to do?" said velvet, guessing what's coming.

Ez just smiled then spoke in a way no one at the table understood. "_just follow my lead._" Velvet's eyes shot open in shock. The person in front of her, knew her language of the rabbits. One of the best kept secrets of the faunas. How! How did she know.

"_how do you know this language._" Velvet spoke. Venom laced in her voice, even the surrounding humans heard it. They were wondering why these two people were arguing in hushed, tones. No one but them understood what was happening or what was being said. Blake had an idea, but still couldn't understand it. It was obvious that velvet was mad, but they didn't know why.

"_I might tell you later, but for now, fix up your body language, you'll give the game away._" Ez said smiling like she was having a conversation about hobbies.

Velvet calmed down and started laughing, then she smiled and asked, body language completely different from what she was saying. "_I don't what a 'maybe later' for an answer. You will be telling me how you know to speak like this." _She flicked her hand in a 'sort of_'_ manner. As if describing that she doesn't really like the thing they're talking about.

For the audience, it seemed they were talking about hobbies, velvet didn't like something and recovered when Ez said something. Maybe a clarification. And then she continued the conversation. As if she was now describing her hobbies.

Ez picked up the conversation. "_if you want answers, meet me one the roof of your dorm building tonight at midnight."_ She giggled a bit at the start and end of the sentence to make it seem she had said something funny. Velvet laughed a lot, recovered in a giggling fit and went on.

"_you better be there."_

The two returned to English. "tada." Said Ez "are you happy now?" she asked Weiss.

Weiss was very surprised. This girl really did know other languages. "yes. I am." She said, beaten.

"what were you talking about?" asked ruby, of cause. Her silver eyes were alight, and she was literally jumping on her toes.

"stuff." Said Ez nondescript.

Velvet, seeing that won't cut it, butted in. she didn't want anyone pressing her for answers later on. "we were talking about hobbies. Did you know, she can play the piano." She said pointing at Ez. Ruby eyes widened in shock.

"I didn't know you play an instrument." She said accusingly.

"you never asked." Ez countered, crossing her arms. Velvet was happy Ez was playing along, seemed she had the same idea.

"you are so going to have to play for us later." Said yang.

Nora jumped in. "yeah, and we can get Weiss to sing. I've heard from a friend that somebody told them that the Schnee family knows how to sing. I Wanna heard you sing!" the enthusiastic pink teen yelled, stomping her foot on the table pointing at Weiss.

"I would prefer not to." The heiress said calmly.

Velvet left the first-year students and headed back to her team. She was thinking over what had been said, but she didn't let it show. This was a faunas problem, not theirs. She would be there, on the roof of her dorm building, at midnight.


	6. Chapter 6

Velvet had arrived an hour early. She was asked to go to her dorm roof at midnight, but she didn't really trust the rabbit speaking person. She definitely isn't human, it is physically impossible to make the sounds necessary for their language. She probably wasn't faunas, she didn't smell like one and she didn't get that feeling. Velvet has always gotten the feeling when she met a faunas, it was like she just _knew_ when she met her own kind. With Ez, it sort of just scared her. like she was a power far above herself, with unimaginable strength and power beyond comprehension. Velvet didn't know how she got this from a feeling, but it had never led her astray before.

She sat there, on the roof, waiting for Ez to show up. Minutes passed as she though about Ez. The mysterious girl who didn't do the entrance exam and never shows up to class. Ez had rumors running around school about her already. She was strange and off putting, like she wasn't actually there. But they are just what some other students thought.

Her timer for midnight beeped on her scroll, it brought her out of her thoughts. She put it there in case she lost track of time, she turned it off and stood up. She glanced around in search of the strange kid. She wasn't there.

She sighed, then spoke to herself, "bet she isn't coming, just another person picking on me because of my heritage."

"nope." The voice behind her said.

Someone had been able to sneak up on her, her of all people. The faunas famed for having such good hearing, that nothing ever snuck up on her. so how was It possible that someone had done it?

"who's there?" she said, turning on her weapon, only half made.

Ez walked out of the darkness with her hands up, "who did you expect? I was the one who asked you to come here." Confusing was laced in her voice. But to Velvet, it didn't sound genuine.

"how did you sneak up on me." She said in a voice demanding answers.

Ez sighed. "just wait, we got to talk to Oz first. If he says I can't tell you, then too bad. If I'm permitted to tell you, then I will."

Velvet was confused, "what does professor Ozpin have to do with this."

"well, if I told you and you told someone else, it could endanger all the students at this school, and probably everyone on this planet. It involves Oz because I'm at his school, so I might as well try to behave." Ez said, waving her hand in dismissal.

Velvet was silent, what could be so bad about a student that could endanger the entire world? Who is this kid? These were all questions she might or might not get an answer to tonight.

Ez spoke up again. "so were going to Oz's office." She started walking away, leaving the rabbit faunas behind. When she reached the edge of the roof she turned back, "are you coming or not?"

Velvet started moving towards the black-haired girl. Staring daggers into her, hoping for her to tell her.

They walked to the office on the top of the tower in silence, Ez seeing no reason to talk, and velvet to afraid to ask.

Standing in front of the intimidating doors or the headmaster office, Ez smiled. She kicked the door as hard as she could, sending then smashing against the wall. They didn't fall off their hinges, they were too strong for that, but they did make a creaking sound. Velvet stood in shock and silence while Ez walked into the room. _Why did she do that? _Velvet thought.

"miss scarlatina, are you coming in?" came the caring voice of the professor. Her was wearing his usual attire and holding a cup of coffee.

"ah, um. Yes, professor Ozpin." She said, still shocked at where her interrogation was leading. Velvet walked into the room, closing the doors behind her, much softer then Ez.

Ez walked straight up to Oz and sat on his desk facing Velvet. "code 19 butterfly." She said. Ozpin raised an eyebrow and looked at Velvet.

He thought for a bit. "I am sad that you couldn't keep your secret for a week, but it can't be helped. I will allow it." He said, taking a sip of his coffee.

"cool." Said Ez simply.

"what are you talking about?" Velvet said, completely confused. She knew they came here to ask permission, but what was code 19, and what do butterflies have to do with this? The questions were killing her.

Without answering her question, Ozpin spoke. "miss scarlatina, do you really want to know Ez's secret? If you do, you will be bound by a rule of secrecy, never to tell anyone of what you hear in this office."

Velvet thought for a minute or two. Ozpin was proud that his student wasn't just barging towards an answer and was slowly considering it.

"I want to know." Velvet started, "but Ez told me that her secret could hurt a lot of people and endanger even more. I don't want that to happen. All I want to know, is how you can speak the language of the rabbits, anything else, I don't believe should involve me." She finished sternly.

Ez smiled. A person who isn't blinded by the greed of knowledge. "your interesting." Ez said, only loud enough for her to hear. Louder she said, "I know the language of the rabbits because I was around when it was made." Velvet looked very confused.

"huh?" she was not expecting this.

"I'm immortal and was around 5 thousand years ago. I was there when the faunas made their separate languages to protect themselves against the dumb humans." She paused, allowing a second for it to sink in. "of cause, this doesn't mean anything, as everyone else, people who aren't a faunas, didn't know it was happening either." Velvet looked at her confused, where was this going?

"for the next couple hundred years or so, I just got bored enough to learn all the languages. Because of what I am, my secret, I could easily pick up the language and pronouns it right. I even learnt how to write all of them." Ez continued her ridicules story. "and before you say anything, I'm not lying. I really am immortal, and this did happen." She added.

"but how?" the rabbit faunas asked, even more confused then before.

Ez tilted her head. "I just told you how." She responded.

"no." Velvet said weakly. "you told me how you learnt the language. How are you immortal? It just seems. . . well, impossible." She ended, looking Ez in the eyes.

She just got a smile in return. "that's because of my secret."

"and I asked not to be told what it was." Finished Velvet. She stood there for the next five minutes thinking, until she heard Ozpin take a sip out of his coffee.

"well, do you like her tale?" he asked, a hint of humor in his voice.

"I wasn't lying." Ez said, crossing her arms and pouting like a child.

"I know. But she doesn't." he said motioning with his coffee cup towards velvet.

They were silent, waiting for her answer.

"yes. I asked for answers, and you told me. I don't necessarily believe them or trust you, but I will accept that you did answer my question." Velvet said with a stern face. Ozpin raised his eyebrow again.

"good." He said. "don't tell anyone of this, miss scarlatina. Now off to bed, you don't want to be tired for classes today." He said, with a small smile that escaped Velvets eyes.

She left the room, thinking over what had been said. She would keep her promise of silence. Velvet decided to become friends with the 'so called' immortal. No harm in that, is there?

* * *

"are you going to tell your friends?" Ozpin asked, already knowing the answer.

"yeah. Just not yet. I want them to stay as my friends, not become untrusting enemy's." Ez replied facing away from Ozpin.

The headmaster of beacon just nodded. Not many people could understand her way of living. He was just one of the few. "not everyone can accept living beside the most powerful type of Grimm."

Ez just looked at Ozpin from the corner of her eye. "I know."

"as long as you understand." He said, spinning his chair around to face the view of vale.

Ez responded, quietly, but loud enough for her longtime friend could hear, "yeah." Her voice sounded almost wistful and sad. Almost.

* * *

Ez was missing. And not the garden variety of missing where she is just hiding from view. She is missing. Posters and all.

Or that's what ruby wanted to happen, when she charged into Ez's room in the morning, planning to drag her down to breakfast. But Ez just wasn't there. She had even taken her green cloth with her.

"where did she go?" asked ruby, after explaining the situation to the other seven students.

"donno." Said yang, trying to help her sister.

"maybe she went ahead of us." Offered Pyrrha.

"I doubt it." Said Weiss. "she took her cloth, and she's never taken it to breakfast before."

"the sticks missing too." Pointed out Ren.

"what stick?" Nora asked.

"the stick that's been on her desk for the last couple of days. It looked like she was smoothening it out or something." Ren continued.

"Ooooh that stick." Said Nora, not remembering the stick.

"never mind." Said Ren, seeing his long-term friend is oblivious to it.

Ruby picked up the conversation from before. "so, what do we do about Ez? She's missing, and without telling any of us. It might be bad!" she was on her knees exaggerating the entire story.

"we can go and ask professor Ozpin in our lunch break. They seem to know each other well." Said Juane.

"okay. I just wish she told us before she disappeared." Ruby said, getting up from the floor and walking towards the door, heading for the cafeteria for breakfast.

The first three lessons of the day passed in a blur. By the time the lunch break started, ruby was going crazy. Who cared about the crazy stories professor ports tells, her friend is missing! And she was going to find out where she went.

* * *

"professor Ozpin, sorry to disturb you in the middle of the day, but, um, do you know where Ez went. This morning we found her missing, she had even taken her cloth weapon thing. And we were wondering, since you know her better then all of us, do you know where she went?" Ruby asked.

Team RWBY were standing in front of the headmaster, again. Team JNPR decided they would let team RWBY find Ez, they had homework to do. So they came up here to ask their headmaster.

"you said she took her weapon with her, correct?" asked Ozpin

"ah, yes." Replied ruby. Ozpin hummed in thought.

"she probably when on one of her walks. She'll be back in a day or two, nothing to worry about." He said.

"oh." Ruby said.

"so, where did she go?" asked yang, very confused by Ez's behavior.

"anywhere. Whatever's in the direction she was headed." Ozpin provided.

"and where would that be?" Weiss said

Ozpin shrugged. "I haven't the slightest clue, but what I do know is that she will almost always come back. She will tell you when she leaves for good." He said, looking at them through the top of his glasses.

The students accepted his answer and left. "I still wonder where she went." Said ruby in the elevator.

"we all do." Said Weiss.

* * *

Ez was walking. As far as she knew, she was in a very big forest with a bunch of mountains. She had been walking for at least 10 hours now. She wasn't tired though. How could she be? She had only been walking for a measly ten hours. Even if she had walked more then twice as far as any human could run in that amount of time.

It was fine, it gave her time to think.

She waved her stick across her side, destroying the forest for a fair distance.

He friends for now, if she can call them that, were her problem. She would probably have to tell them her 'big secret' and all, but she just didn't want to. After all, almost everyone who heard it started attacking her, mistrusting her, and trying to kill her every chance they got. Ez just wants a friend who won't do that, except Ozpin as he attacked her too, but he found it pointless and stopped. (after 200 years). There were the exceptions every now and again, there had to be, after trillions of years of walking the surface of this world and the next, there had to be some people who didn't want her to die.

Sad thing was, she had enough fingers to count them all, Ozpin included. And he was only included because he didn't die after a century, even if his soul changed bodies. Weird. _Being immortal sucks. _She pouted. Thinking of all the down sides of it.

Only up side was that she felt practically nothing when they did end up dying, it being of old age or otherwise. But that was her Grimm nature. Another thing to point out about herself would be, the Grimm are horrible at conversation and keeping her company. Seriously, all the weak Grimm in the world of light are horrible at talking, even in their own language. The den leaders and bosses know how to, but most don't. it's sort of depressing.

If she wanted to talk to the Grimm she would have to go home to the world of darkness. And that would mean she put in the effort to create a portal to the hidden pocket dimension right on top of them. Way too much effort.

The nevermore following her, on command, squawked. Jolting Ez from her thoughts.

The Grimm commander looked up, she had asked the bird Grimm to tell her when they were nearing the mountain range. She wanted to fly around them before heading back. She summoned her cloth, previously left behind on a tree, and grabbed her sword.

She changed the weapons' form into wings on her back. She flew up. It was handy having a part of your taken off to be used as a weapon, so great.

The air up there was amazing, so soft and clean. Not like the cities, polluted with the overuse of dust. Always trust a human to mess up the ecosystem using the material meant to be her food.

Do they have to destroy the world and make her job harder? No. but will they? Yes. Of cause they will, what else are they there for?

Well anyway, not the time to be thinking about that, she should be enjoying her nice relaxing flight.

The nevermore was flying to her left, staying in an updraft for easier flight. Its feathers looked comfy.

She disintegrated her wings out of existence and stood on the air. (yes, she can do that.) she walked over to the giant nevermore and spoke in their language. "your carrying me back to the human walls." Before jumping on the back of the Grimm and taking a nap. Naps are important, even if they are useless.

Nearing the towers of the city she jumped off the giant bird, it flew away. She fell. Landing without any care for anything around her was fun. She didn't have to worry about the crater that formed underneath her, or the people she might accidentally squish. So, she just stood still. What an amazing landing strategy. Others might bend their legs to soften the landing, or stop their fall with semblances or gun recoil, but no. Ez felt it necessary to do nothing at all. falling from 30,000 feet is child's play after all. she walked the remaining 10km on foot. Not bothered by the other things that lurk in the forests around beacon.

She hummed a tune walking back to the dorm, waving her stick around her.

* * *

Ez stood in front of the eight students she knew. Six of them had accusing glares, Blake and Pyrrha didn't. Blake just didn't seem to care, and Pyrrha was worrying about her.

How did she get into this predicament? Well, it started when she walked into the dorms, still humming her tune. She had only been gone a day so there should be no problems. She did check, a day is not a long time for humans either.

So why were her friends crowding around her demanding to know where she went?

Ez didn't know.

"you should have told us where you went!" exclaimed ruby "you worried us all to death!" she was waving her hands around.

"yeah!" agreed Weiss, surprisingly. "we were searching for you for over 3 hours. Where did you go."

"we even asked Ozpin. He said you'll come back, but you scared us. Don't do that again." Jaune added.

Ez had her hands up to defend herself against the barrage of accusations. "but I was only gone for a day, what's wrong with that?"

"you didn't tell us!" shouted Nora, acting more-or-less responsible in front of her less then sensible friend.

"but. . ." Ez started before being interrupted. . . again.

"no buts, every time you feel you need to just disappear, you tell us. Got it?" Weiss pointed at Ez to prove her point.

"umm. . .got it?" Ez agreed confused, raising an eyebrow at the students verbally attacking her.

The group calmed down and went into RWBY's room, they were annoying the neighbors. They played video games together on the projected screen on the wall. Ez lost most of the time, not even holding a candle to yang or, surprisingly, ren. Who would have thought the quite kid could play a game like a pro.

"so, where did you go?" ren asked, after overly beating Ez's character. She was used to it.

"that way." Ez pointed to the wall, or the direction she had come back from, either one.

"we realized you wandered off, Ozpin told us that much, but didn't you have somewhere you were going, or a goal to reach."

"nope" said Ez not taking her eyes off the character.

The eight students stared at her. she was kidding, right? "you just wandered off?" ruby said, voicing their concern.

"yep"

"so, you didn't tell us where you were going because you didn't know where you were going?" ruby asked again.

"pretty much." Ez dignified that with a shrug of the shoulders. Stupid human habits.

"Ez." This was yang.

"yeah?"

"can you tell us why you went?" she said it in a caring voice, or compassion. Ez couldn't tell.

"to be alone, To think and to go for a walk." Ez replied quickly.

The group let her be, for now. They stopped questioning their friend and decided to just drop it. But they were still worried. Ez had some weird habits. and they all needed to be there to keep an eye on her.


	7. Chapter 7

First day of school.

Well, that's not true.

First day of the second week, and Ez's first day of attending lessons at school, Would be the better term.

She stood outside her dorm room, waiting for her friends to finish getting ready for the day. They took forever. Honestly, who needed to spend half an hour doing their hair? She could understand yang's obsession with brushing it, but Weiss, why did she have to pick such a difficult hairstyle? Buns were hard enough; did she really need to tilt it to the side?

Ez sighed. She decided to try not to question the teens looks. there would be no point. Its not like they will change it or anything. and besides, she's just lazy, with her hair let down all the time without brushing it often.

"GOOD MORNING! Good morning! Gooooood morning." Nora chanted rushing out of her room, closely followed by Ren. "it's morning!" she shouted down the hallway, "oh, hi Ez." She said, waving.

"hello Nora." Ez replied, completely use to the orange haired girls' shenanigans. "hello Ren"

Ren sighed, "hello Ez."

RWBY, Juane and Pyrrha came out soon after, each saying their separate 'good mornings' to everyone else in the little friend group.

The nine students headed out to the cafeteria, yang and Blake volunteering to get food for everyone. They soon came back with an assortments of dishes, pumpkin petes for Juane, pancakes for Nora and Ren, a plate of strawberries and cookies for ruby, tuna sandwich for Blake, toast for yang and Pyrrha and cereal for Weiss and Ez.

"Thank you" said the group collectively before digging in to their meals.

"so, you're coming to class with us today." Ruby gestured at Ez. She nodded.

"cool." Said yang, joining in on their discussion.

Weiss, sitting next to Ez, spoke up, "you're a week behind, so if you feel you need some help to catch up, just ask me. I am already assisting ruby, so it won't be much of a hassle."

Ez smiled at her white friend. She was _not_ going to take her up on that offer.

"can I get some help too?" yang just had to take advantage of this perfect situation. "maybe all of us could use your help in class." The other team agreed. None of them were behind in lessons, in fact, they were ahead of most of the other students in terms of grades, but no one could compare to the perfectionist called Weiss. She strives for 100 percent all the time, and got it. Pyrrha was the only other student in class who could rival her academically, but she usually got between 95 and 100 percent, so close to Weiss's perfect grades, but so far. Oh well, Pyrrha didn't want to be the best anyway, she just wanted to be accepted as a person and make a real friend, so academic scores didn't matter much to her.

with Weiss's help, the other six members of their group could get grades that good, which, eventually, shine a positive light onto Weiss.

"you could get extra credit." Taunted yang.

That set Weiss's mind in stone. "I'll do it." She said. "but only if you need help. I'm not going to just give you the answers, so don't expect me to." Her chin up high to show her superiority. To the rest of the group, it just looked like arrogance. But they weren't complaining, they just got the best help _ever_ for assignments.

* * *

"today we have Grimm studies with professor port, followed by history with Dr. Oobleck and finally, combat with professor Goodwitch." Said Weiss, one hand behind her back and the other raised in front of her.

"I can't believe you memorized the timetable already." yang commented.

"it's not _that_ hard." Nora said.

"wait, wait, wait. Did you remember it too?" asked ruby raising an eyebrow.

"yep." She said, popping the 'P'

"how did you manage that?" ruby asked, even more confused.

Pyrrha answered for her. "Ren told her she can't have any pancakes until she did, so she memorized it." She shuddered, "it was horrifying to watch."

RWBY was taken aback by the reply. "why did you do that." Ruby asked, facing the silent teen.

"so I didn't have to." He said. Eyes closed in an act of fake wisdom.

"_that's_. . . is actually pretty smart." Said yang, nodding her head. "now, if only we can do that with Blake." She continued under her breath.

"but you've got Weiss." Said Ren.

"she doesn't count." Retorted yang.

"point" Pen said, nodding his head sideways.

"hey!"

nothing more was said.

"we're here." Said Weiss, entering the room. the others followed. Ez stood just inside the room without sitting down.

Professor port had just started his rambling when he noticed Ez. "ah, miss Ez. Please take a seat." He said, gesturing to an empty seat. She sat. he went back to his rambling. Ez noticed that it was mostly about himself defeating the Grimm, but sometimes he would say something interesting. These things are stuff like; the death stalker only has one weakness; the intelligence of a Grimm is measured by age and the best way to kill a Beowulf is with force.

None of these were true, the death stalker has hundreds of weaknesses, the intelligence is determined if the Grimm bother to watch and wait, or observer the prey, and you can easily kill a Beowulf with a finger nail.

This class was not going to be interesting if this is what's taught. Ez slumped in her seat, watching the rest of the class.

The only people paying attention to professor port were Weiss, Pyrrha, Ren, the kid in the far back, and a kid who said EEE-YEP! Just before. The rest of the class were in varying stages of disinterest, some were sleeping, others were playing with their stationary, two people were reading a book and eight were on their scrolls. All in all, this didn't seem like a class most enjoyed or cared about.

Ez turned back to the rambling teacher, just in time for him to point at Ez with a white board marker. He had pulled down a massive white board and had drawn a very detailed Ursa. It didn't seem like he missed anything. "miss Ez, could you please come up here and draw all the weak points of an Ursa onto my very impressive Ursa, if I do say so myself." His mustache twitched.

"ok." She said as she left her seat, taking the red marker off the professor, and standing in front of the Ursa.

She stared at it. Then turned back to the teacher. "how do you want me to mark them? Coloring it in or circling it?" she asked port.

Weiss looked happy that someone else was paying attending in class. At least Ez seemed like she was listening.

"whatever you like." Said port, gesturing to the Ursa on the board.

Ez hummed in thought, took the lid off the marker, and colored the entire thing in red. except the mask and a thin line going down its back. Everything else was colored in.

Weiss was gob smacked, here she thought she found another person excelling academically while still enjoying it, her she thought this girl ruby found would like classes and learning, and here she saw how wrong she had been.

Ez was just another immature child using class time to muck around and do whatever. She didn't care about learning, or studying, or anything a student should. This was just her way of killing time. Weiss was angry at herself for not noticing the immature behavior of the secretive person living next door.

Port scrunched up him mustache. "miss Ez, may you please tell me what you're doing." He arms were behind his back, looking like a proper professor.

"I'm coloring in the weak points of the Ursa." She didn't even turn to face him, just touching up on the drawing.

"last I checked, the Ursa have some plating on their chest, so why have you colored that in as well? Would you not just leave it blank like the spine and mask?" he asked.

"no. the armor on the front of the Ursa is always a lot weaker then the spine. The spine is one of the strongest parts on an Ursa, that is why it is not a weakness. If one were to attack the spine outright, it is more likely their weapon will dent then the spine breaking. Most people don't know this because they attack the Grimm head on. From one angle, the spine is an indestructible object, but from the other, it is very easy to break. as for the mask, it is the strongest armor on any and all Grimm." Ez explained facing the professor and the class now.

Port hummed in thought. "I can see your point. Ok, I'm giving you points for your explanation."

That caused an uproar in her classmates. "EEE-YEP!" someone cried, supporting the student at the front.

"your giving out points?!" someone else said.

"stupid you didn't know that." Snickered the boy called Cardin, flicking something into the unsuspecting boys' hair.

"but she didn't even do it correctly!" Weiss almost shouted, standing up.

Nora woke up. "GAA. . .wait. . . what's happening?"

Ren, ever the optimist, answered. "ports giving points to Ez for answering incorrectly."

"oh. . .ok." Nora said, before returning to her sleep.

Ez took this chance to go back to her seat. Port started the job of student wrangling.

"student. Calm down." He said, hand in front of him in a calming motion, most of the students paused in their ranting. "I gave miss Ez here points because of her explanation, and yes I have been giving all the people who sleep in my class minus points. These points go towards the end grade and are given as a bonus to what you earn. That is not to say miss Ez got the question correct though and she will hopefully study on it to get it right next time. Now onto my next adventure." Mr. port said without pause, not allowing the students time to process what he said before he started rambling.

When it did sink in, most of the students payed attention and not slept, intent on getting these 'points'. Some people still ignored him though.

* * *

The life saving bell went off.

The entire class left their seats and headed off to their next class, history with Dr. Oobleck. Ez was surprised at how much the student hated the class they left, sure it didn't seem very good at first, but under the surface of ports tales, there was a lot to learn from them, even if some of it was fake.

The small group, again, comprised of JNPR, RWBY and Ez, went to the next class. On their arrival, the two teams sat down yet again while Ez introduced herself to the teacher. Dr. Oobleck, like professor port, gave her a seat and started the lesson. They were learning about the great war that happened some centuries ago. To Ez it was more like yesterday.

She remembers the 'so called' _great_ war, a time of bloodshed for humans and a feast for Grimm. They eat negative emotions. It was _great_ fun, but as far as wars go, it wasn't anything special, In her opinion anyway.

For most other people, the war was a time of horror and fear. Humans and Faunus were terrified of every corner they turned, every person they met, and every town they came across. Ez found it all hilarious how much humans can't trust each other. She barely understood why they were fighting in the first place.

Dr Oobleck had a different opinion then her, he kept saying things like 'if you don't learn your history, then you are destined to repeat it.' he is a very serious person. When you get over the super speeds he travels at.

Speaking of which. . .why does he travel that fast? Ez wondered. For the rest of the lesson she took apart every aspect of his 'super speed' to the tiniest detail and pulled it apart to discover the mystery. After an entire hour to think it over, she decided it was just him on a permanent coffee high. So disappointing. Ez had hoped that maybe he had some cool speedy semblance or something, maybe boots that made him fast (she had seem them before, but not anytime recently) or a spell that warped reality.

But no. he just had a very bad coffee addiction.

After her analysis of her history teachers speed, she wasn't paying attention to the lecture and didn't end up making a finite opinion of Dr. Oobleck. The bell went and the class went to lunch.

For some reason Juane and the boy called Cardin stayed behind. RWBY went to lunch ahead of JNPR, dragging Ez alone with them.

Unsurprisingly, Ez didn't eat anything for lunch, again. RWBY was worried for her, she ate hardly any breakfast, no lunch and a small dinner everyday for the last week now. She wasn't looking any worse then before, but she could definitely get malnourished if this continued. They would have to do something.

When ruby finished her lunch she poked Ez, "you should eat something."

Ez looked her in the eye. "why?" she asked calmly. Ez had dealt with situations like this before and knew why, she just couldn't help herself.

"because you'll get sick." Ruby said, crossing her arms.

"no I won't."

"yes you will."

"no I won't"

"yes you will."

"yes i will."

"no you won't." Ruby said.

"so, I won't get sick, cool." Ez smiled.

Ruby was blushing in embarrassment softly, she had fallen for the oldest trick in the book. Oh, how humiliating.

"that's. . . that's not what I meant, and you know it." Ruby pouted. "and you really will get sick."

Ez's smiled dropped a bit but didn't disappear. "and I'm telling you, I really won't."

"how! If you don't eat enough, then you'll be all sick and malnourished. if you go into the field in that condition, something bad _will_ happen! So, go eat something!" ruby was practically yelling, but only her table heard her.

Ez paused for a bit. Then looked at ruby in the eyes. Everyone else on the table had gone quiet, all hoping ruby won the argument. Everyone was on standby to support her.

"I can eat something if you want me too, but just so you know, it will not help at all. normal food does not feed me, I eat something completely different. So, if I'm going to eat something, then its going to be something that is actually useful." Ez relented. "but, I can put up the farce and eat the food from here, if you wish." She said waving her hand from side to side.

Ruby was silent for a few seconds. "what do you eat."

Ez rested her head on her hand. "well, there are only two things that I actually can eat. I'm not telling you the first one, and the second one is dust."

"you've got to be kidding." Said Weiss, joining in. "dust is the most dangerous substance on remnant, everyone who has ever put dust into their bodies have died from the pain. How can you eat it." Everyone silently agreed, some even nodding their heads.

"because I'm _not_ everyone." Ez said, turning on her. Blake heard the slightest bit of sadness in her voice.

"even so, you shouldn't be able to eat dust." Weiss retorted, ice cold fire in her eyes. "and what's the other thing you eat? Why can't you eat that?"

Ez sighed. "well, as strange as it is, I'm able to eat dust. As I said before, I'm not telling you what the other thing is, I'm not even going to give you a clue. And for your last question, I have been eating it, you guys just don't notices."

". . ." silence filled the table.

"can you still go and eat something." Whispered ruby.

"I am." Ez said, even quieter. she left the table to find a high quiet place to sit for the rest of lunch.

"well that was unexpected." Yang said when Ez left the room.

"how rude." Weiss said.

After a few moments of silence, Blake spoke up, putting a bookmark in her book. "I'll go talk to her." she left the table, following Ez secretly.

Ez was going to beacons cliffs behind the school, Good a place as any. She sat down on the edge of the overhang, leaning backwards and swinging her legs below her, eyes closed. Ez listened to the sounds coming up from the valleys, every animal squeak, every tree rushing in the wind, and every Grimm. She could hear everything. The Grimm had noticed her, most of them carrying on with what they were doing but filled with nervousness with the proximity of their high commander, others went straight up to her and bowed down, knowing nothing else to do. They left when she growled at them to leave. She wanted to be alone.

Ez could hear the cat Faunus trying to sneak up on her. as far as her skill goes, she was pretty good when compared to her classmates, or anyone her age for that matter, but she was rather bad when compared to the professional assassins sent after her head over the years. Ez was honestly not expecting this level of skill from a student though.

Still, she could hear her coming so she might as well have a little bit of fun with her.

Ez started to sing. It was a slow song in the language of the cats. This does not mean a whole bunch of meowing. Its was in the language the cat Faunus made to communicate in the dark times, still practiced today.

"_sneaky little kitty cat, I can see you there, hiding in the shadows, hunting little bears."_ Her song startled Blake, she wasn't expecting Ez to start singing. She was singing an old lullaby, Blake had heard it when she was a little girl. Her mother had sung her to sleep with it. Blake had a suspicion it wasn't just a coincidence that she started singing it either.

Hearing Blake pause made Ez happy, she started the next verse._ "Scary little kitty cat, I can hear you there,_ _over every mountain, even_ _under stairs."_ This verse had always confused Blake. But right now, she was confused how Ez knew it. It was a lullaby, but it was a lullaby in the world best kept secret, The faunas languages.

Ez could feel the confusing radiating off Blake like a beacon, she could only guess what she was thinking, even if it was a good guess. _"running little kitty cat, I can feel you fear, the hunters are behind you, they're only after ears." _This was the darkest verse in the song, why that was in a lullaby, Blake didn't know.

Ez continued singing, a little louder and a little faster then before_. "sprinting little kitty cat, I can smell you here, slow down or they'll find you, your running on despair."_ Blake didn't know why this verse didn't rhyme, maybe the writer didn't know any words at the time, or maybe that was on purpose.

"_hiding little kitty cat, I can help you here, come a little further, the fear will disappear."_ This verse use to calm Blake, but now it scared her. how will the fear disappear? Will the hunters vanish? Or will the little kitty cat die? It that why she won't have any fear? Or is she just over thinking this?

Blake creeped a little closer to Ez. This made her smile, Ez slowed down her singing and sung softer. _"safety little kitty cat, is found anywhere, just look all around you, the place is never bare." _This verse was true, safety can always be found wherever you are, whether it be on the top of a tree, in a river or at a friend's house. Blake had never failed to find a safe place to go to when she needed. Blake wondered if that was because of this song. In the song it meant, find a familiar face, usually a parent or another Faunus, and they will help you when you need it.

The last verse of the song was just a repeat of the first. Blake couldn't help herself, she joined in, very quietly. _"sneaky little kitty cat, I can see you there, hiding in the shadows, hunting little bears." _The last bit of the song was about the ancient trust between the cat and bear Faunus. In older times, a game similar to tip was made for the two groups, it was called a hunt. No one knew why it was called that, it just was. Now it was used as a metaphor between the two Faunus groups.

Blake stood in the stillness of the trees. She wasn't really sure why she had sneaked up on Ez, it just felt appropriate.

"I know you're here Blake." Ez didn't turn to face her, she watched the forest below her.

"so you did know." Blake responded, abandoning any attempt at hiding, she had a suspicion she knew the moment she started singing.

Ez didn't answer that, instead she asked her own question. "do you like my song?"

Blake came up and sat next to her before answering. "yes. Even if I have some reservations about how you know it." Ez giggled.

"you're not going to find that one out right now." She said. Blake turned to her, watching the small smile creep onto Ez's face. Ez didn't seem to notice Blake's gaze on her. interested more on the forest in front of them then the conversation they were having. Blake faced away from the girl, interested in the goings of the forest, or, how its entertained Ez. Seriously, what was she looking at?

Ez sighed after a few minutes of peace. "might as well get into the nitty gritty. Why are you here?" she asked, no malice or anger in her voice. She was just curious.

Blake hummed in agreement. "mostly to provide emotional support. Otherwise, to ask you about what was said earlier."

Ez sighed, she wasn't getting away with this, is she. "if I tell you, I might as well just tell everyone. But I will '_come clean_' and answer some questions." Ez said sarcastically. "by the way, I won't be telling you why I eat dust, I'm just telling you how. Aaaand, you get to wait until school ends for the day."

Ez stood up and left, closely followed by Blake. The two girls followed the route to their last classroom for today, the arenas. They had combat with professor Goodwitch.

* * *

Juane stumbled back from Cardin's swing, barely dodging the blow. Now off balance he couldn't escape the overhead strike coming for his chest. Juane raised his shield in an attempt to block it. the mace stuck the shield with full force, sending Juane to his knee and his aura to the middle of the bar. He took the opportunity to strike at Cardin's legs, taking advantage of his lower ground. Cardin jumped back, escaping the blows and allowing Juane enough time to get up on his feet.

With his balance back, Juane charged at Cardin, going for a sword thrust, Cardin moved to the side, Juane swept his sword across his body to follow his movements, the sweep taking half the strength out of the initial thrust. Cardin raised his mace to block the attack. The blow lowered his aura a tiny bit, but not anything substantial.

Juane pulled his sword back and attacked Cardin with everything he had, putting Cardin on the defensive. Seeing his chance, Cardin struck out with an underarm strike at Juane's many defenses gaps, he was thrown up and onto his back. Cardin then brought his mace up and struck down on his shield again and again. Juane rolled out of way of the last hit, rushing to his feet.

Yet again, he charged at Cardin. This time Juane went for an overhead swing closely followed by an underarm one. They were both blocked and counter attacked. Cardin did a final attack to his gut, sending his aura into the red.

"and that's the match." Glynda's voice boomed around the room. the lights came on. "mister arc, please try to refer to your scroll in combat." She said in a dismissive manner.

Juane left the arena groaning in pain. Cardin left laughing.

Pyrrha rushed down to the changing rooms to help the injured Juane. He thanked her for her efforts but refused the help. He was a man, he can do it himself. As stupid as that was.

Glynda addressed the crowd of students. "We have time for one more match before the lesson ends, is there any volunteers?" she asked.

No hands went up.

"then random pick it is." Glynda said, pulling out her scroll. Two large projected screens appeared above the ring, the faces of every student were flashing passed the two until they settled on Ez and Charly smith.

Ez had no idea who that was. She was going to have to memorize her classmates' names, or problems like this might happen. Honestly, who the hell was he/she. Ez walked down to the ring's changing rooms, passing Juane. She summoned her stick, like she does for her green cloth. She hadn't told her friends she can do this with everything because it would look suspicious. How else can she teleport things in a swirl of darkness then a semblance, and she already told then numerous times, she didn't have one. for now, it can stay as one of her many, many secrets.

Her stick looked like a blade. She had cut it down to a single plank and had sharpened it to the point it was as dangerous as a real blade. She made it as strong as steal, so it wouldn't break. it was her weapon, shaped like a katana. After she was satisfied with her creation, she dented the blade over and over again, so it wasn't dangerous anymore. Well, it wasn't dangerous in anyone else's hands, she could still make it a lethal weapon.

Ez walked onto the ring. Her opponent was the one who said EEE-YUP during professor ports class. He was carrying two dagger-like knifes that probably had the ability to turn into guns. They sort of reminded her of Ren's weapons, but at the same time, they didn't. they were dark blue in color with even darker blades. Alone, they might have looked sinister, but in his hands, they looked like garden tools.

If she was dealing with short weapons, a long blade like her stick would only get in the way, she was better off with free hands. She put it through a rope tied around her waist, acting as a sheathe until she got a belt or something. Her opponent didn't like this, to him she wasn't taking him seriously.

The lights in the audience turned off, putting the competitors in their own world.

Glynda clicked a button on her scroll and a five second timer started.

It reached zero.

Charly raised his weapons and flicked his wrists, turning them into guns. He started out by firing at Ez while charging at her. as soon as the first bullet reached her, Ez seemed to disappear, reappearing behind her victim. To most of the audience, she teleported, but to the trained eye of some, they could see her sprint to her place behind the knife-gun wielder.

Ez finished the record-breaking speed match with a knock to the back of Charly's neck. He stopped shooting at nothing and collapsed, unconscious, on the floor. Ez could hear a small groan coming from the unconscious victim. She felt sorry for him.

The audience stood in silence for a good twenty seconds. Before Glynda clicked a button on her scroll, causing the end siren to go off and the lights to come back on.

"t-the winner is miss Ez." Glynda said, trying very hard to keep the surprise and trembling sounds out of her face. But Ez could tell she had freaked the combat teacher out.

Ruby was one of the people to recover the fastest. "wow! Ez, your amazing." She had fought against Ez in a fight and knew she wouldn't go down easy, or at all, but to see it happen in third person just enforces how far apart their skill levels were. She was just on a whole other grading table. Ruby couldn't even begin comparing herself to the master before her.

Glynda had gotten over her initial surprise and was taking charge of the students. "that was the last dual for today, so I will let you leave early. But just this once." She turned to face Ez "and I would like to see you after class." Ez nodded at her, twisted around and poked the unconscious student on the cheek until he sat up.

"I won, your allowed to leave early." She said monotony. For a few seconds he was confused, it clicked, he smiled.

"you're a good fighter." He stood up, dusting himself off.

"I know."

He rolled his eyes. "I gave you a compliment, you're supposed to say, 'thank you'." He said, putting his twin knives together and into the dark blue sheathe at his side.

"ok." Ez said, clearly not very interested in the conversation. Charly took his cue to leave.

The rest of the students had left by now. Glynda waited until her last student left before coming down into the arena and addressing Ez.

"so, miss Ez. I know your strong and all, but how in the world did you move like that?" she said. "where did you learn to do that? Even master hunters would have trouble dealing out such a one-sided fight, not that I haven't seen it happen before, but it was never that easy."

Ez stood in silence, her face betraying her thoughts, not that she was trying to hide them. She grabbed out her scroll and texted Ozpin. _Can I tell Goodwitch? _She wrote. The reply wasn't instantaneous, but Glynda didn't say anything. _Yes._ Ez smiled a little.

Under her breath she said, "I've been given more freedom here then I realized." Glynda only heard a mumbled response. Louder, Ez spoke to Glynda. "I'm immortal." Oh, the professors face, it was priceless. A mix between confusing, surprise, wonder and horror. None of them belonged on her face, but here they were. It almost made Ez giggle. Almost.

"w-what?" she stammered. "how can you be-." she didn't even want to finish the sentence. Ez did it for her.

"immortal? Funny thing that, can't remember." She lied. she knew exactly why she was immortal, same reason she can eat dust. She's a Grimm. "it was so long ago, couple hundred millennia or something." Oh, how she wished she was that young. "I just stopped aging one day." She shrugged her shoulders. "oh well, nothing much I can do about it now."

Glynda was so close to fainting it was hilarious, to Ez. She grabbed out her scroll and started videoing the teacher, she will want evidence to prove this to Ozpin.

Glynda almost got control of herself but couldn't get the stammer out of her voice. "b-but then, w-why are y-y-you h-here?"

Ez smiled a toothy grin. It was a good question, but she was never going to tell her the real answer, that would be no fun. "well, I've been asleep for the past 200 ish years, and the language and customs and stuff changed again, so I asked Oz if I could attended his school, and he said 'ok'."

Damn it. Glynda used her own confusion to get herself out of her initial surprise. No chance of getting her to faint now. "why would he do that, for a silly reason like yours?"

Her smile dropped a bit but didn't faltered "couple of reasons I'm not going to go into." She said shrugging. Ez turned around to leave. Glynda didn't try to stop her. Ez reached the door and spun around before opening it. "though, it might be because I'm older then him." She escaped the room before Glynda had a response, but she ducked her scroll in to record the teacher faint. Glynda knew that her headmaster has had many lives, and was over a few thousand years old by now, but here Ez was, saying she was older. And with a smile on her face no less.

Ez laughed. playing with humans are so much fun. She was definitely going to be showing this to Ozpin later, but first, she should to deal with her friends.

Speaking of witch, they had waited outside for her, probably so she couldn't escape again.

Half of them perked up when she run out the door with her scroll peaking back in. the other half were eavesdropping on the conversation, badly, resting their heads against the solid wood door, they jumped up and pretended they were doing nothing when she exited the room. Blake was the only one to get a rough idea about what was said. And of that, most of it confused her.

Ruby was whistling suspiciously, as if that ever helped when your trying to act innocent. Nora acted like nothing was wrong, at least that was less obvious. Yang, Weiss, Pyrrha and Ren weren't eavesdropping so had no reason to fake innocence. Juane was waving his hands around trying to explain himself, Ez wasn't listening. And Blake was contemplating the bits and pieces she heard, it just didn't make sense.

"so Ez, howdidyoudothat?" asked a speedy ruby with sparkling eyes.

"I, uh, hit him very hard on the back of the neck." She said, by now she knew this wasn't the answer they wanted, but she wasn't going to say anything here, especially not with team CRDL listening in from around the corner. "let's go to the dorms." She offered, walking off before anyone could say otherwise.

The two teams followed their solo friend back to their rooms, each lost in their own thoughts. Only Blake and Ren thinking about the mysterious girl.

Ruby was imagining all the cool upgrades she could give crescent rose, maybe put a kitchen knife on its compacted form for cooking, or even a spare hair brush for those annoying tangles she gets in the middle of a fight. But she puts both these ideas aside, they were dumb, And she didn't even need Weiss to tell her so.

Nora was thinking about her next meal, hopefully pancakes, and the best ways to make Ren cook for her. she is well aware that the mess food is free and provided to them, but it could never be compared to the perfect meals created by Ren. Speaking of food, when did she last eat? Maybe an hour ago or something, she needed a snack. She grabbed Ren's hand and dragged him away to go get snacks for everyone.

Juane was wondering how to approach the beauty called Weiss, no other words need to be said.

Pyrrha was wondering if Juane would ever notice her. she was slightly jealous of the attention he gave Weiss, but gave no indication of it. She was annoyed but grateful of the ice queens cold turn-downs. After all, it just means his free, and ripe for the taking. Now she just had to do it.

Ren was off with Nora, so his thoughts on the matter, didn't count anymore. His mine was solely on making sure Nora didn't do something stupid or dangerous for no particular reason.

Yang was questioning how Ez had so effortlessly defeated the other student. He wasn't the best student at beacon, but her wasn't the worst either, he was average, and at a place like beacon, that was saying something. But to pull off a one-second match like that, it was just so one-sided and broken. How was she so strong and fast, she had gone faster then ruby with her semblance. Yang was so going to fight her again, this time alone and then, she will convince Ez to teach her.

Weiss was thinking about the assessment Dr. Oobleck had given them, she needed to do some research on the Faunus. It was about the different qualities and abilities of the separate Faunus groups. Why she had to learn about those degenerates, she didn't know, but she will do it anyway to get a perfect grade.

In their separate pondering, no one even noticed that they had entered Ez's room, or that they had formed a circle on her bundle of beds, or even when Ren and Nora came in with snacks. It was only after that, that they remembered what they were doing.

They were questioning Ez, like they had begun to do at lunch. Blake had told them she would answer their questions, even if hesitantly.

The girl in question was currently texting on her scroll. The group thought it might be something important, so they left her to it. after a few messages between herself and the unknown person, she put it down and sighed.

"I'm allowed to tell you about half of what I am, everything else must stay a secret." She waved her hand in front of herself, the group took this as a sign to start.

Weiss asked first, "so how can you eat dust?"

Then Blake "and how can you speak the Faunus languages?"

And yang's "oh, and how you did that one shot? Please teach me." She added on the end

Then Ren "and how you knew so much about a Grimm's spine?"

Nora added on to the end of that one "well, how little you knew about Grimm defenses or armor." She fixed.

Juane said nothing, having thought of zero questions that haven't already been said.

Pyrrha asked "where did you learn to fight like that?"

And finally, ruby, "Ez, are you Ok?" she was the only one really caring about Ez. Ruby could see the shadows covering her eyes and the sad look on her face, this obviously wasn't a happy subject for her. she looked outright depressed, and ruby was the only one to notice. Well, until she said something, then everyone looked at her to see why ruby had asked that, but by then, Ez had covered up her face with a fake smile and a happy face.

She sighed, keeping her tiny smile, then she contemplated how to answer the questions, before diving strait in. "lucky for you, I can answer most of your questions with three words. Unluckily for me, those three words will just make more questions." After what seemed like forever, Ez took the time to stare into each of the student's eyes, she continued. "because I'm immortal."

No one had a response.

* * *

**Review, favorite, follow**

**Hello to the people who read my fanfiction. I know I don't write anything down here often (because i forget) but I decided I might explain a little about my OC. As the title states, she is the commander of Grimm, she's immortal, (as you've probably figured out by now, only wrote it three times…) and shes ridiculously OP. if you think of a stupidly powerful ability that really shouldn't exist, then she has it. (also tell me about it, so I can put it in the fanfic). I also have a big fat bunch of history and stuff to fit her into the world, but you get to wait to find it out with RWBY and JNPR. my fanfiction will also stay relatively close to the canon version, except Pyrrha WILL NOT die.**

**And to those who want the song I wrote for Blake and Ez, here it is, without the words between them. And yes, I did make it up on the spot. If you don't like me writing songs, then tell me so I can stop. But this one is staying. (even if I don't think its very good.)**

**"_sneaky little kitty cat, I can see you there, hiding in the shadows, hunting little bears."_**

**"_Scary little kitty cat, I can hear you there, over every mountain, even under stairs."_**

**"_running little kitty cat, I can feel you fear, the hunters are behind you, they're only after ears."_**

**"_sprinting little kitty cat, I can smell you here, slow down or they'll find you, your running on despair."_**

**"_hiding little kitty cat, I can help you here, come a little further, the fear will disappear."_**

**"_safety little kitty cat, is found anywhere, just look all around you, the place is never bare."_**

**"_sneaky little kitty cat, I can see you there, hiding in the shadows, hunting little bears."_**


	8. Chapter 8

"because I'm immortal." Ez said in the most normal and cheerful voice. She looked at the faces in the circle, some were horrified, others didn't understand, and the rest were worried. Weiss, Blake and Ren understood what immortality meant, a life of loneliness, no friends, no family, no nothings. It wasn't entirely true in her case, she still had the Grimm, but they didn't know that. Juane and ruby didn't understand, maybe Ez was joking and this was just one big prank. The rest were worried.

"how?" The silence stretched out for many minutes until it was broken by Blake. The random string of words she heard before were starting to make a little sense now. Not a lot, but they were falling into place. She was deciphering how Ez made the combat teacher faint. If this is what she said, it might be possible.

Ez looked at Blake with her slightly sad gaze. "so much time has passed, I don't even remember. One day, I just didn't die." She sighed, she didn't like lying. Her gaze shifted to the rest of the assembly of students. "its more likely because of who I am then what I am, but I'm not allowed to tell you either. What I can tell you, is how me being immortal would answer all your questions. She went around in the circle, starting with ruby. "yes, I am ok. Thanks for asking." Then Weiss, "I can eat dust because I can't die, and no it doesn't hurt as my metabolism is different from yours. I just need to eat different things from you." _Even if one of those is dust and the others negative emotions,_ she added in her mind. She then turned to Blake, "I know how to speak every last one of the Faunus languages because I've literally had billions and trillions of years to learn them. My original language was much, much harder than them, so I found it relatively easy to learn." She turned back to Weiss. "This is also how I know over 400 different languages." She added. Ez faced yang. "I'm just skilled. And I might teach you, but only if I want to." she went on to team JNPR, skipping Juane and Nora as they didn't ask a question, and faced Pyrrha. "I taught myself. Any teacher I had, I could beat super-fast. I grew up in a place that is kill or be killed, I am just exceptionally great at the former. And no, I don't make a habit of it." She said when some of the group recoiled in shock. She turned to the last face in the circle, "I know more about the Grimm then you think. From your point of view, an Ursa is relatively strong and its spine is just very strong, as well as the rest of its armor plating. But from my point of view, where I've seen dragon Grimm and be able to take then down in under five seconds, knowing the weak points to all the Grimm became very important, and as such, the ursa hide is very very weak." She closed her eyes. Expecting another array of questions.

What she got instead was a hug.

She opened her eyes in surprise, this was the least thing she thought would happen. A red blur with her hood up was giving her a hug.

"you said you were ok. But why do you have such a sad look on your face?" the red bundle asked, she was trying so hard to suppress her tears, but Ez could hear the muffled sniffles of her friend.

She hugged her back. "because I've had this conversation so many times before." She said, releasing ruby.

Juane, getting out of the shock, asked "how does that work, you're only going to need to tell us once, why would you tell us again?" he asked, pondering more on what she said before then now. He just didn't want it to fall back into silence. Ez shook her head.

"no. not with you. I meant the conversation in general. I have told so many people, yet I still have to say it again centuries later." Ez said.

Juane was catching on, albeit slowly.

Weiss spoke now. "you must live a very lonely life, even more so then me." She said softly. Everyone heard her.

Ez gave her a very toothy grin. "well that is to be expected. But you know, I just stopped attending funerals, solved half the problems."

Her friends had faces of pure shock, mostly Juane, Nora and ruby, because they finally figured out what this means for her social life. Ez just rolled her eyes. Mucking around with humans is fun and all but doing it the exact same way every time just gets boring. They need more facial expression for her exploit.

Her calm and not-sad-anymore face put the minds of the students at ease, if she was ok with it then they shouldn't be either.

Then Nora picked up on something, "back before, when you said you grew up in a horrible place, you used present tense. What was that about." Another grin.

"sorry, can't answer that one. It would go into the half of the story I'm not allowed to tell you." She said.

Weiss said louder then before, "speaking of witch, who's restricting you from telling us?"

Ez hummed in thought, "Oz."

Weiss recoiled slightly in shock, "why would he do that, it's your past."

Ez shrugged. "well, he has good reason to. The other half of my secret can easily start another war."

The group absorbed this information.

Ruby was the first to speak up. "wait. . . did you just say another war?"

"yes."

"how does that happen?" she asked.

"well," Ez started, "who doesn't want an immortal solider?" she changed her voice into a sarcastic, overly dramatic one. "someone who will fight for their world, uphold their values, win wars and kick butt for the rich." Her voice returned to normal. "many people in power want immortal soldiers so they can send them out on suicidal missions and be able to guarantee that they will come back. Only down side of this is when the immortal proffers to sit back and watch as humanity tears itself to shred again." Ez rolled her eyes, "honestly, I've lost count on how many wars I've watched, participated in, won and lost. Humans and Faunus are just so driven towards conflict, it surprises me that they haven't destroyed themselves yet. . . or when they do, enough survive to repeat the process centuries later."

The entire group have finally gotten over the shock from their friend's life span.

Pyrrha asked "what did the people in power do to you when you didn't fight for them?" it was idle curiosity.

Ez giggled. "well, half of them send assassins to kill me. I find it stupid because it like 'you won't be my immortal puppet, well then, you can't be anyone's immortal puppet.' I don't think they understand what unkillable means. And the other half either sulked or send me hate mail. Now that was funny."

They laughed. _FINALLY_! It took her so long to get them out of their moody horrified stage. Now to get them through the accepting stage. And yes, there are stages to this, she even made them herself. _Urg. . .this is so annoying…_ she thought to herself.

Nora looked at her in confusing, "so, your unkillable. . . "

"Yes" this seemed like it was going somewhere.

"and they sent people to kill you." it wasn't a question.

Ez nodded. The rest of the group laughed even harder.

Ez checked the time. After the group got over their laughter, she spoke again. "its late so you should probably go to sleep now."

RWBY and JNPR took this in strides and left, each saying their goodnights.

They all slept with heavy thoughts on their minds.

Except for Ez, who doesn't sleep. she texted Ozpin to see if he was awake, he was. So Ez decided to go talk to him, haven't really done that this week, might as well now.

* * *

"you tell them?" He asked. it was more of a statement then a question.

"yep." She said, almost completely ignoring the headmaster. Ez was sitting in Ozpin's office on a couch she had dragged onto the elevator because there were no seats. Don't tell the teachers, but she stole it from their lounge. Ozpin was doing some paperwork.

"how much?" he asked, not looking up from his growing pile of paper. He hated Glynda for making him do his job. why can't he just sit in the fancy office looking impressive? Apparently, that's not all it took to be a headmaster. They have to do the boring stuff like planning and paperwork, he proffered the former then the latter.

Now it was Ez's turn to not look up from what she was doing - playing a game – "they know I'm immortal and that's about it, same with Glynda."

Ozpin nodded, Ez knew he did, even if she had her back to him.

A few minutes passed "Remember Salem?" Ozpin asked. he was well aware that Ez knew who she was, but he wouldn't put it against her to forget.

"you mean that dumb human the brothers turned immortal, forgot about, and I made do lots of dumb paperwork that I didn't want to do 6000 years ago?" she asked raising her eyebrow.

"yes, that one."

"yeah, what about her." she asked, actually sparing a glance at the grey-haired professor.

Ozpin sighed, putting down his pen and crossing his fingers together. "she has started to make her move. The fall maiden was attacked last month, and half her power was taken. I believe something bad will happen soon."

"by fall maiden, do you mean one of the four girls you gave most of your magic to?"

"yes."

"ok. . . do you want me to bring the two powers back together?" she asked absentmindedly.

Ozpin nodded. Then thought. "wait, you can do that?" he raised an eyebrow.

Ez snorted. "you've known me for 6 thousand years, and you still haven't realized I can do just about anything. Oh. . . I find that so funny." she looked at the roof, "as all magic originated from me, this will be like her returning a book to the library."

Ozpin looked at her and started writing on the paper again. "so, you're a library now, are you?"

"yep." She didn't even argue the point. "or the friendly neighborhood person that lends everything out to the people on the streets."

"now that is definitely not you." He said, drawing a graph and filling it in.

"which is why I said library." She got the last word this time. "but I will need to physically touch both of the people with each half of the power."

Ozpin hummed in thought. "we have amber, the fall maiden, currently in life support. As for the other half, we don't even know who it is."

"that fine, if they stole the ability then they must be planning something, and since they only got half, they will probably come here to find it."

Ozpin nodded in thought and relented, she had a point.

Ez got up. "I'm bored now, let's go meet amber." She said, pushing the couch into the far corner of the office.

The headmaster looked at his growing pile of paper. This can be done later. He got up, happy for a legitimate reason to escape Glynda's trap. He joined Ez in the elevator and they went down to the basement. The doors open and Ez was awestruck, Ozpin was proud he could surprise her.

"what a big room for just one human. Why do you people insist on making big structures?" she said, killing his mood

Ozpin shakes his head. "because it's impressive. This way." He led the way to amber, passing many arcing corridors.

At one of these corridors, Ez stops, sniffs the air and smiles. "now I know why this is such a big building."

He hummed in question

"there's a relic that way." She pointed down the corridor she had sniffed.

Ozpin stops hid stride, turns on his friend. "how did you know?" he asked, slightly suspicious, but not, at the same time.

Ez rolled her eyes at his shenanigans. "I could smell it the moment we got down here, just hadn't placed it yet." Ez pointed at her nose. "and no, the rest of the Grimm on this world will not be able to pin point its location like I just did. Let alone get through the door."

The headmaster of beacon sighed, maybe he was too skeptical. He needed to fix that, or make it seem less so. "come on, were almost there." He said, turning around and walking towards amber's life support system. Ez followed him.

Amber was hooked up in a pod that had many wires and cords coming out, going to another pod. She didn't look very good; a scar runs across her face, she was wearing a white bra and white skirt. Other then the slow breathing coming out of her mouth, one might even assume she was dead. But Ez knew better. The scar was the entrance made by a parasitical type of Grimm, she had banned then from this world. It was slowly killing her.

"well that's the problem." She said, pointing to her face scar.

Ozpin rolled his eyes, "we know that."

Ez looked at his skeptically, "don't think you do." She turned back to amber. "can you open this?" she gestured to the pod.

"yeah, but care to explain what you think I've missed?" Ozpin said, typing commands and passwords into the computer panel next to the pod. The pod containing Amber opened with a hiss. Sterilized air came out in puffs of smoke that dispersed into the surrounding space. Ez didn't like the smell.

She stood next to the injured huntress and trailed the scar on her face with her pinky finger. "this in an entrance wound of a Grimm I have banned from coming to this plane. It slowly eats away at its inhabitant's mind, body and soul. In fact, it's one of the eight types that can actually destroy a soul, or, in your case, the only ones who can permanently kill you. Fortunately, other than myself, none of them are allowed here." She said to the headmaster. "So, Salem has been getting more powerful while I've been neglecting paying attention to anything. This is getting interesting." She added as a side note.

Ozpin was well and truly surprised by this piece of information, he knew Ez wasn't lying but was also happy his friend didn't seek the destruction of the human race like the rest of her kind.

He was also well aware that she had destroyed the world many times before. Not in his life span though.

"can you help her?"

Ez hummed in affirmation, she looked at the scar for a little bit longer before whispering something Ozpin's ears couldn't catch. In was in her language, the mysterious language of the Grimm, that must never be spoken. A few seconds later the scar started to move. It twisted and turned and formed into a bulge on her cheek. Ez put her hand out and caught the bulge before it hit the ground.

In her hand was a small bug like creature, it had six legs and a jaw like a beetle. It was screaming at the top of its lungs, high pitched. The sound was deafening, until Ez crushed it in her hands. "so annoying, it kept asking for forgiveness for disobeying a direct order from me. It wouldn't shut up." She Explained to Ozpin.

he couldn't hear her; his ears were bust from the screaming.

Ez reached out and touched Amber again, this time bright red particles flew off her, condensing around Ez's outstretched arm. The dazzling display was amazing, the girls were glowing in the amber light of a thousand mini suns orbiting them both. Eventually the stream of magic was cut off and Ez stared down at her blazing arm. The magic slowly settled into her body, turning the room back to its dark state.

"done." She said to Ozpin.

"very impressive. What are you going to do with it now?" he asked.

Ez started dragging amber out of the life support system, seeing no other reason why she should need to be in it. She laid the sleeping girl on the ground. "when I get the other half of the fall maidens power, I will throw it in a random direction for the next person worthy of it."

"Oh. . ." Ozpin was clearly not impressed, he was expecting something more thought out, or a better idea then just throw it in a direction.

"you should put her in a normal hospital, nothing these things can do." Ez gestured to the pods she was previously in. "she just needs a nice cozy bed." She continues.

Ozpin sighs, catching on to what Ez was getting to. She walked off. Ozpin looked at amber sleeping on the ground. Ez didn't want to carry her.

Ozpin picked up amber bridle style and carries her back to the elevator. Sometimes, Ez can be really annoying.

* * *

"so. . . there we were, in the middle of the night." Nora started.

"it was day." Ren fixed.

"we were surrounded by Ursai." Continued Nora, ignoring Ren's adjustments.

"they were beowulves."

"DOZENS OF THEM!" Nora shouted, standing up.

"two of them." Ren sighed.

Nora sat down again. "but they were no match, and in the end, Ren and I took them down! And made a boat load of lien selling Ursa skin rugs."

Ez tilted her head. "but Grimm disappear when they get killed."

Ren answers "she's been having this recurring dream for nearly a month now."

Ez nods her head, finally getting how you sell Ursa skins in this plane.

The rest of the table wasn't paying attention to the pairs story. Especially ruby Pyrrha and Juane. Juane in particular seemed upset, anxious and stressed out. Ruby and Pyrrha shared a glance.

"Juane are you ok?" Asked a concerned Pyrrha, her voice was demanding an answer, but it wasn't mean or nasty.

Juane sit up straighter when he noticed he was being spoken to. "oh yea. Why wouldn't I be?"

Ruby answered. "its just that, you seem a little _not _ok."

Juane put up a false charade, "guys, look I'm fine." He put his thumb up and smiling.

Ez was on the other end of the table, so didn't want to join in on their conversation, it would be rude. But she could _hear_ that Juane was lying. She ate negative emotions, so it was blindingly obvious that something was wrong with Juane. And unlike popular belief, for Grimm, emotions aren't felt, they are heard. she can _hear_ what was wrong and wanted to help, but knew, if she solved the problem for him, they would just get darker. And that would help no one.

Cardin's laughter made its way to their table. Juane looked to see what was happening, CRDL was picking on velvet, the rabbit faunas they met last week. Pyrrha noticed his wariness at the sound of his laughter.

"Juane, Cardin's been picking on you since the first day of school." The boy in question turned around and started defending the bully.

"who? Cardin Winchester? Nah, he just likes to mess around, you know, practical jokes." He made a dismissive gesture.

Ruby got serious and looked Juane in the eye. "he's a bully."

Juane rolled his eyes. "oh please, name one time he's 'bullied' me."

The pair then continue to describe three times Cardin bullied him.

"I said one." He said, holding up one finger.

Pyrrha was getting irritated slightly about Juane's continued excused. "if you ever need help, you just have to ask."

Nora jumped on the table. "we'll break his legs!" she yelled.

"great idea." Said Ez, her glare focused on CRDL.

Juane stood up with his food. "guys, you don't need to do that, it fine. Besides, its not like he's only a jerk to me, he's a jerk to everyone." He finished

"your admitting he's a jerk though." Ez countered.

"ow, that hurts." Velvet's plead could be heard all around the cafeteria. Cardin was pulling on her ears. Ez stood up and walked over to the group. "please stop." Velvet tried in vain.

Cardin ignored the girl and continued pulling on her rabbit ears. "see, I told you they were real." He said to his team.

Ez tapped Cardin on the shoulder. When he turned, Cardin saw a smiling face before a fist. He slammed into the wall on the other side of the dining hall. "you ok?" she asked. team CRDL were shocked and very surprised. There leader had been K. so fast. They didn't believe it. They ran away from the monster called Ez.

Velvet responded to Ez's question. "y-yes. Thank you."

Ez smiled at the praise. Then noticed the rest of the student body listening and watching the action, she stood on the table. "I HATE RACISTS!" she yelled. "and if I catch you doing it, I will punch you like I just did him." She threatened, pointing to Cardin, stuck, unconscious form in the wall.

Some random guy yelled out. "who put you in charge?!" Ez could see who it was, another insignificant person in the crowd. It was a good question so she wouldn't do anything to the one who asked, but it was still annoying.

"ME!" she yelled, scaring the wits out of everyone. They were not going to mess with her. Ez got off the table.

"where's your team?" she asked velvet quieter.

The rabbit faunas answered a little hesitantly. "coco's sick so Yatsuhashi's staying behind in the dorms. Fox went to tell the teacher's they'll be absent and I'm getting food for her. she was hungry."

Ez thought for a bit, nodded, it made sense. Her team was usually very protective of velvet. Keeping her away from Cardin and giving him a hard time when he approaches. Even Ez noticed this in the two weeks she's been here. They didn't even try to hide it.

The two girls left to go in their separate direction, velvet to her dorm and Ez to the table.

"being a faunas must be hard." Yang said to no one in particular. Ez shared a glance with Blake, she looked down. It wasn't the right time.

"I still think you should've broken his legs." Pouted Nora.

Ez smiled at her and sat down. "I definitely broke his nose."

Nora sighed. "not as good as his legs."

Ez's smiled dropped and she sighed as well, mimicking Nora. "I feel your pain. . ."

The rest of the group had one thought in their mind. Weiss was just the one to voice it. "what in the world is wrong with you two?!"

They both sighed harder, ignoring the ice queen.

* * *

Ez, unable to sleep like Juane, is suffering through Oobleck's history lesson. She had decided early in the week that this class sucked. Not that the lessons were useless or unhelpful, in fact they were the opposite. Oobleck was also a very good teacher, even with his coffee addiction. It was just, Ez had lived through most of the things he was talking about. The lesson was just a giant recap of her memory.

Luckily, Cardin was in the infirmary and wasn't being a complete nuisance in class.

Oobleck zoomed around the room during his speech. "yes! Prior to the Faunus rights revolution – otherwise known as the Faunus war – humankind was quite adamant about centralizing Faunus population in menagerie." He pointed to the island on the map and takes a sip of his coffee. "Now! While this must feel like ancient history to many of you, it is imperative to remember that these are relatively recent events!" he takes another sip of coffee. He should really do something about that addiction. "Now! Have any among you been subjugated or discriminated because of your Faunus heritage?" he asked the students.

Someone in the back put up their hand, velvet follows their example. Ez glared at Blake. Her message was clear, and Blake will ignore it. '_put up your hand!_'

Oobleck looked at the group of students, not missing the glare from Ez. "Dreadful, simply dreadful! Remember, students, it is precisely this kind of ignorance that breeds violence!" he swiped his had across his table, knocking a book off the table. He promptly ignored it. "Now, which one of you young scholars can tell me what many theorize to be the turning point in the third year of the war?" Weiss put her hand up. "yes?"

"the battle at fort castle." She answered, proud in her knowledge.

_What a boring name_. thought Ez, _it would've been funny if fort castle wasn't a fort or a castle, but it was. humans need better naming sense. _

Oobleck took a sip of his coffee. "Precisely! And who can tell me the advantage the Faunus had over General Lagune's forces?"

Now this was an easy question. Ez put her hand up.

"yes?"

"general Lagune's forces hated him, the Faunus had night vision, and general Lagune was very inadequate as a leader, he was more suited for being a foot solider." Ez listed. Oobleck eyed Ez, he only knew the second one, the other two were lost to history. He was curious why she thought that way, but it could wait until later.

"yes! Now! Moving on!" he said excitedly. For the last ten minutes of class he talked of a different battle that was less important but more important at the same time, Ez had only watched this one, not participating. The soldiers believed in their commander to the bitter end, literally. They showed so much trust in their boss, even Dr Oobleck knew about it. These are the things that are usually lost to time.

* * *

Juane walked out of the history class with the rest of JNPR. He was very downcast and sad looking. Ez left the group to go god-knows-where, as usual. Pyrrha grabbed Juane's wrist and pulled him away from the masses of students coming from the classroom while yelling "I have an idea!" not many students paid attention to the two.

Pyrrha dragged him to the roof of the dorm buildings. They walked out and looked at the view before them, it was beautiful.

Juane faced his partner and started speaking. "Pyrrha, I know I'm going through a hard time right now, but I'm not that depressed. I can always be a farmer or something."

The red-head shook her hands around and pushed Juane, "no!" her caring voice said. "that's not why I brought you up here. Juane, I know your having a difficult time in class, and that your still not the strongest of fighters, so. . . I want to help you." She smiled warmly at her leader, expecting a positive response.

"what?" Juane was very confused. His voice sounded meek and hopeful.

Pyrrha had become even happier, she hadn't been bluntly refused. "we can train up here after class, where no one can bother us." She explained.

Juane looked down at his feet "you think I need help?" his voice was no longer hopeful.

"no. no. that's not what I meant." Pyrrha said, not expecting this line of thought.

Juane pushed her away slightly and looked at the ground, suddenly interested in the bits of dust at his feet. "but you just said it."

Ez was sitting on the roof above them. She had known they were here the moment they walked through the door. It's not like she was stalking them or anything, she had been here first, but she didn't want to interrupt. This is a thing between teammates, not her. so, for the past week, she had stayed out of it. Now, hearing both what he is saying and the emotions he's feeling, she wanted to revise that plan. If it got so bad that there might be a rift between these two, she will step in. but if not, she won't do anything.

Pyrrha looked at her friend sadly, "Juane, everyone needs a little push from time to time, it doesn't make you any different from the rest of us. You made it to beacon." She moved her hands to prove it. "that speaks volumes of what your capable of." Juane sighed and turned around, not wanting to face the innocent warrior.

"your wrong." He said. He sighed and shook his head. "I-I don't belong here."

"that's a terrible thing to say, of course you do." Pyrrha countered

Juane turn on her, this time angry. "no, I don't!" he pulled back and sighed again. Pyrrha was shocked. "I wasn't really accepted into beacon." He spun around to stare off into the distance and the shining towers of the school.

"w-what do you mean?" she asked, curious but worried.

"I mean I didn't go to combat school, I didn't pass any tests, I didn't earn my spot at this academy!" he spun to face Pyrrha, looking at the ground again. "I lied. I got my hands on some fake transcripts and I lied." He wasn't shouting anymore.

_This isn't going very well_. Thought Ez. She will definitely be stepping in soon. She stood up ready to jump down to the level below.

"what. . .why?" Pyrrha asked, afraid of the truth.

Juane looks sad but irritated at the same time. "because this is what I've always wanted to be. My farther, my grandfather and his farther before him were all warriors, were all heroes. I wanted to be one too." He said, his previous meekness came back in boat loads. "I was just never good enough."

Pyrrha saw a chance and took it. She placed her arm on his shoulder. "then let me help you."

Juane jerked away. "I don't want help! I don't want to be the damsel in distress! I want to be the hero."

The red-head was sad, her plan was not working in the slightest. "Juane I—"

"I'm tired of being the lovable idiot, stuck in the tree while his friends fight for their lives! Don't you understand? If I can't do this on my own, then what good am I?" he asked, completely helpless.

"well, until you step up your game and make an effort to get better, that's exactly what you're going to be!" A new voice entered the conversation. Ez has had enough of this. She was stepping in now, without subtly or care. He was about to make a big mistake, the idiot.

the two students turned to face the voice, startled by the declaration. They saw Ez, their friend. She jumped down from the roof and walked up to Juane. "I was planning to do nothing. Hoping that you would see reason and ask for help, or at least take it when it's offered on a golden platter." Ez poked him in the chest. He stepped back. "all your arguments are invalid. Oz already knows your transcripts are fake! He just believed you could make it in this school. You may not have gone to any fancy prep school, but guess what? Your standing in a giant prep school for hunters. If your tired of being stuck in the tree, jump out. Simple as that. Your not making an effort to do it." All her arguments were backed up with a stab at his chest. Each making him step back. "you want to get better." She asked, holding her hands at her side. "stop sleeping in class, take notes, accept Pyrrha assistance. Anything that's not brooding over what's useless." She crossed her arms and huffed. "now apologies."

Juane and Pyrrha alike were both surprised. They were not expecting this at all. they thought they were all alone up here, no one to listen in. Juane was still taking in what she said.

"uh, how di-" Juane tried but was cut of by Ez.

"apologies." Her voice filled with malice.

Pyrrha was just as confused as Juane and was slowly taking everything in, her points made sense. Knowing he wouldn't get anywhere without doing as his told, he did as he was asked. "s-sorry Pyrrha." He said while looking at the floor and rubbing the back of his next.

"properly." Ez's eyes turned pitch black and menacing for a moment before returning to normal. Only Juane could see it. And it terrified him.

He put his hands to his side and looked Pyrrha in the eyes. "I'm sorry for what I said Pyrrha, you don't have to forgive me."

Ez looked at the red-head. She picked up the silence message instantly. "I forgive you Juane, and my help is still offered."

He sighed happily. Then the two spun on Ez.

"how did professor Ozpin know?" Juane asked.

"how long were you listening?" Pyrrha asked.

Ez looked at the pair. Stared at then, would be more correct. And started laughing, very loudly. She wiped away a fake tear and started explaining herself. "I was sitting up there when you two walked out." Pointing to the sloped roof above them. "I heard the entire conversation." She then looked at Juane. "don't underestimate Beacons scanning protocols. They noticed your transcripts were fake, so they notified Oz. he then let you in for the initiation to see if you were any good, like what he saw, and let you stay. as far as he's concerned, your just another student." She smiled. "and you have what it takes to become an amazing fighter, leader and friend. You just have to try." Having one final jab at Juane.

Ez turned and left before they could say anything else.

They stood in silence for a few minutes, staring holes into the door.

"can you please help me." Juane finally said.

Pyrrha knocked Juane off his feet.

"hey!" he said, not expecting this.

"your stance is all wrong, lower yourself and keep your balance. Raise your arms up to protect yourself." She smiled warmly.

Juane smiled in kind. "right."

The night didn't go exactly as planned, but it did achieve the intended purpose. Her team leader was no longer getting depressed.

* * *

**Hi guys. If your wondering where Cardin is at this time, the answer is. The infirmary. But don't worry, he'll be back for forever fall. I need him for seeking revenge. I'm sorry this chapter has a lot of copied content from the canon, I couldn't really think of anything different for this bit. But to be fair. . . I am thinking up all of the stuff I can make happen after the fall of beacon, and yes it WILL be falling. All dramatic like and stuff.**

**please review.**

**See ya.**


	9. Chapter 9

"yes, students," Glynda said, "the forest of forever fall is indeed beautiful. But we are not here to sight-see. Professor peach has asked all of you to collect samples from the trees deep inside this forest, and I'm here to make sure none of you die while doing so."

Most of the students ignored her, but some were paying attention.

Ez was walking along with RWBY and JNPR, as usual. Her presence here is attracting more Grimm then she thinks is a good idea, but none of them had gotten here yet, so she guesses its ok. No harm done...yet. She was carrying her own jar, like everyone else.

Juane and Pyrrha were unusually quite around each other, still milling over what happened last night. They are still good friends, but they needed time to adjust after last night. They would tell Ren and Nora later, but for now, it was just between them and Ez.

Glynda looked at the students walking behind her and stopped, they were paying attention now. "Each of you is to gather one jar's worth of red sap. However, this forest is full of the creatures of Grimm, so be sure to stay by your teammates, we will rendezvous back here at 4 o'clock. Have fun!" She added, walking off to go sit in a tree and watch them all.

"come on!" ruby says to her team, dragging them in a random direction.

Ren asks Juane, "are we going to follow them?"

The team leader shakes his head. "no, where going this way." Pointing in the opposite direction.

The rest of the students in the class all go in their separate directions, except Ez. She was watching the approaching Grimm in the distance and the teacher. Ez knew the teacher didn't know about the imminent threat, and she didn't want to tell her either. They won't be here in the next ten or twenty minutes or so, and she should probably do something about them, there's over 10,000, but. . .she's lazy and didn't want to. The students can run in terror from the wave of Grimm, the teacher can try to keep them at bay, or something. She'll do something when they get closer. But there not here yet.

She walked up to the closest tree and started collecting sap when she _heard _revenge coming from above a hill and behind her. she immediately identified it as Cardin with his team. They will be annoying. But for now, she can ignore him.

Ez did listen in on the conversation team CRDL was having though. learnt about their 'fool proof' plan because of it. It consisted of throwing a jar of sap at her and hoping they don't miss, then, the rapier wasps they collected will swoop down and attack her because they are attracted to the sap.

She could point out the numerous flaws in this plan, but she doubted they would understand.

1) just about every animal has a natural instinct to be utterly terrified of her, for good reason. The rapier wasps would run away from her, like their trying to do right now. But they can't get out of the box, so that failed.

2) The swarm of Grimm headed in their direction. They don't have enough time to initiate their plan.

3) She can easily dodge the jar. Have none of them been paying attention to all of her stupidly fast reflexes and movement in combat class? Seriously, there is a point where idiocy reaches its point, and they are well and truly past it.

4) The rapier wasps don't like the sap. They do like sweets and the sap is sweet, but this is one of the exceptions to the rule.

"NORA!" Pyrrha's anger exclamation could be heard by everyone, it knocked Ez out of her thoughts. Nora must have eaten the sap. Ez doesn't blame her, it is rather delicious.

The approaching Grimm where less than five minutes away. If she told Glynda now, she could get away with 'good instincts' instead of former knowledge they would come. She really needs to tell all Grimm to leave her alone. . .she'll do it later.

She jumped into the tree Glynda had hidden herself in. "miss, there's a massive Grimm horde approaching from over there." She pointed in the direction if CRDL. They were in between her and the horde. _Oh well._ She though. _Poor them_.

The teacher was startled at first, this was not good. "what makes you think that, miss Ez." She said formally.

Ez shrugged. "I can hear them. Seriously, they're loud." She adds when Glynda didn't quite believe her.

"how long until they get here?" she asked, a good huntress isn't going to ignore information like this just because it came from a student. . .even if she _is _older than herself. Glynda still hadn't quite gotten over that fact. She even asked for clarification from Ozpin, he backed up everything Ez had said.

Ez hummed. "about four minutes." She said.

If they were that close, then she should be able to hear them too. Glynda shut her eyes, focusing only on her hearing. Within a few seconds the sounds of the oncoming horde reached her ears. Branches being broken, howls from pack leaders and falling trees.

She jumped out of the tree, followed by Ez. "all students draw your weapons, be prepared for a horde of Grimm." Her voice carried, everyone heard her. She then grabbed out her scroll and dialed in the emergency number, calling in the evacuation ships. Glynda didn't believe she can protect all the students _and_ keep the Grimm away from vale. She could only do one, and her priority is protecting the children in front of her.

CRDL gave up trying to get revenge, Ez had even disappeared, and drew their weapons. They retreated towards everyone else.

RWBY put the jars down in favor of getting ready for the battle to come. Blake's bow twitched and changed the direction she was facing. "over there." She said simply. No one questioned it.

JNPR followed their leaders' orders. "group together, be on guard for attacks from any direction." They stood there for the next four minutes tense and ready.

A loud growl came from the hulking form of a spiked Ursa, it was armored all the way down its spine and outer arms. Its belly was the obvious weakness, but it was also armored there. They were going to have a hard time with this one. "Nora, Ren, try to get in on its back or make it stand up. Pyrrha and I will keep it busy." Juane said, charging in to fight, followed by his team.

"Right." Nora said. The other two just nodded.

a pack of Beowulves came out of the woods around RWBY. The leader took in the situation in record speeds. "Blake, yang, deal with the ones on the right, we'll deal with the ones on the left. Don't use up all your energy, miss Goodwitch said it's a horde so there will probably be more. Go." The four leapt into battle, taking down beowulves by the second.

For every Grimm they took down, two replaced them. They were still fresh, so they can hold out for a little longer, but not forever with the way this in going.

CRDL had retreated to the growing group of students, they cleverly hid at the back, facing the oncoming horde. They let everyone else do the work. Glynda stood at the front, taking the brunt of the attacks on herself. She was faced with a deathstalker, two Ursai and about 80 beowulves. She threw the Ursai at the deathstalker, taking out some beowulves on the side. One of the Ursa got stabbed by the deathstalker stinger, the other just hit it and charged at the professor again. This time she threw a hole heap of beowulves at the Ursa, it didn't do much to it, but it did kill a lot of beowulves on its spikes. the deathstalker was very close to her now, she dodged its claws and stinger, before stopping its motion and ripping its entire tail off with a flick of her wrist. The stinger flew back and hit the Ursa. It died.

Using the debris around her she created a giant spear. It spun in super-fast circles and shot towards the unsuspecting deathstalker. It ripped it apart, continuing after and impaling five beowulves clustered behind it. The spear dispersed along with the slain Grimm. Glynda spared a glance at her students, they were holding up fine. Some weren't doing much, such as team CRDL, they were more of a hindrance then help, and others were doing just fine. She looked back at the horde, this would've been hard to deal with if they didn't get forewarning.

Speaking of witch, where did Ez go? She was standing next to her but the moment Grimm appeared from the trees, Glynda had lost track of her.

She heard a horrifying roar come from within the forest. The beast powerful enough to form that sound must be very strong. Glynda was not looking forward to meeting it. She turned back to face two deathstalkers, 8 Ursai and a flock of small Nevermores.

* * *

Ruby cut the Ursa in half, swinging her scythe in a backwards sweep to behead a Beowulf behind her. she looked over at her partner, who was currently stabbing a Beowulf repeatably. An Ursa major ran into the clearing, roaring as it went. It swiped at yang, she didn't block, taking in the force. They had told each other their semblances in the first week of school so they knew it was fine, but it still made Blake's gut twist as she watched her friend get pummeled.

"form up." Ruby called. They grouped together before running circles around the Grimm. "checkmate." Weiss and Blake used their combo attack to swipe across the hide and sides of the Grimm. Yang took the brunt of the Ursa's attacks, taking its attention off her teammates. "bumblebee." Ruby yelled after yang got hit by an unsuspectingly strong attack, sending her flying. Blake threw gambol shroud at yang, she caught it, perfectly fine with being spun around by her partner. Yang activated her semblance just before she got launched into the Ursa. She hit it with everything she had. It was killed instantly, dispersing into smoke.

The three then rushed back to help their leader defend against the swarms of Beowulves and Ursa minors. God, there were so many of them.

A piercing screech made the team look up, they watched as a nevermore circled them. Then watched as the nevermore was struck by a brown moving object, Ez's stick. And finally, they watched the nevermore scatter into smoke. The sword fell, landing in the forest in front of them.

Ez could handle herself, they got back to their own fight. Well, until they heard a huge, terrifying roar, sinking their feelings into despair. They did not want to fight that.

* * *

JNPR had long since killed the first Ursa elder, heck, they had killed six of them by now. They were doing ok, but really needed a rest from the never-ending exhaustion. They were getting tired.

Juane looked at his team. Then at the deathstalker that just broke a tree at the edge of their clearing. This is not easy.

"just like initiation, Ren, Pyrrha, target the stinger. Nora, distract it." He commanded. He blocked the attacks from the claws while Nora smashed it with her hammer. Both attacks only annoyed the deathstalker, achieving the desired result, distracting it so Pyrrha and Ren could cut off its stinger.

When the stinger did eventually fall off, it impaled the deathstalker through its hide. Juane did not expect this to go so smoothly, but he wasn't complaining. "Nora!" he called out.

Nora smiled and jumped off Pyrrha's shield, rocketing herself into the sky. She shot some of her grenades to make her fly higher, when she reached the top of her jump, she started spinning forwards. With a battle laugh, Nora sped towards the Grimm, hitting the stinger into its head, just like initiation.

The deathstalker vanished into dust, a swarm of beowulves and Ursa replacing it. A Ursa elder came charging out of the forest, ready to attack.

That makes seven Ursa elders.

They all collectively sighed. "dammit." Juane said under his breath.

Nora turned around when the roar was heard. Its sheer volume was so powerful, the beast must be very large. She was exited, and for the first time in a very long time, afraid. She was scared of the thing that made the sound. Nora hoped in didn't come after them. JNPR had the same opinions.

* * *

Glynda didn't need her help. First chance she got, Ez ran off. She passed some Grimm, not really paying attention to them. They weren't the leader of this massive parade in honor of her. it was nice and all, but unnecessary, annoying and silly. She rolled her eyes as another Beowulf bowed down to her.

Ez climbed the tallest tree in sight. It was very big, reaching over all the other trees in the forest by a good ten meters. It must have been old. She gazed out into the surrounding forest and found what she was looking for. A stray young Goliath. It must have gotten stranded from its pack.

The Grimm was at least ten-meters-tall, its tusks were huge for its body. It was scanning left and right searching for its commander.

It was young so Ez wasn't pissed at it for its incompetence, in fact, she was amazed by its ability to command the weaker Grimm. Normally, by now, the Grimm below it would have revolted, the only way to make a Grimm behave, is to show it unparalleled strength it just can compete with. For a young Goliath, this was pretty cool.

She jumped out of the tree and rocketed herself towards the massive Grimm. She landed on its back and it snorted in surprise, it was not complaining about being used as a seat. It was happy.

Ez spoke in her language. The Goliath understood and followed the command. "leave, I'm having fun and your parade is ruining it." She said, crossing her arms.

A Nevermore screeched above a clearing. Ez could see that's where RWBY was battling it out. She whistled to it, the Nevermores understand whistles better then words, "come over here."

The Nevermore screeched back, it was young and childish. "yes ma'am. Just ganna get a snack first." Still eyeing the clearing. Ez stared at it for a good 10 seconds, before drawing her stick from around her waist, and throwing it at the Grimm.

The blunt wood sword hit the Nevermore in the crook of its neck, instantly killing it. It turned into dust and her sword dropped to the forest below. The nevermore went home.

The Goliath let out a booming command to its horde. "where leaving! ma'am doesn't want us here." The roar meant.

All the Grimm in the forest froze with the realization that they just annoyed their pristine commander, oh the horror. They all ran. They ran towards the sound.

The students were all bemused when the never-ending army of Grimm froze and ran. Some just breathed a sigh of relief while others became paranoid that they might come back.

Ez spoke to the young Goliath again. "good job. keep control of your horde and don't let it attack the human city, I'm playing in it. Got it?"

The massive Grimm let out a smaller roar in acknowledgement, it will do it.

The Goliath slowly turned around, hulking back toward the mountain ranges with its horde.

It had been praised by its leader. This is the best day ever!

Ez jumped off its back, well aware to what its thinking. She walked back to the students, detouring to get her stick back.

Everyone was grouped together by the time she came into view, Glynda instantly walked up to her to ask where she went, Glynda was the only one there who didn't look bone-dead tired after the 10-minute horde left.

"the Grimm weren't going to leave until you take care of the leader. So, I went ahead and did just that." She said simply, ignoring the rest of the questions from the professor. She walked off to go talk to RWBY.

"hi guys." She said, putting her hand up like a primary school student who's asking a question.

"hi Ez." The exhausted team chanted back. They were sitting in a circle with JNPR. Everyone looked like they could use a nap. Nora was actually lying down and having one.

"we saw your stick." Yang tried to start a conversation.

"yep." Ez replied, looking between the group.

"then we heard a roar." She continued, 'roar' was an understatement.

"so did I." she sat down on the ground with the group. Ren and ruby moved over to accommodate for her.

"and then the Grimm left." She ended.

"huh, I thought they were running from Cardin's horrible smell." And it was true, Cardin did smell…of medicine and anti-bacterial for his bandaged nose.

Blake agreed, having a sensitive nose, she could smell him too. It was torture.

Yang was definitely interested in this. "whats he smell like?"

Ez waved her hand in dismissal. "the old lady smell in nursery homes." She scrunches up her ace in disgust. "now I really wish I broke his legs instead of his nose. They wouldn't need so much anti-bacterial." She stuck her tongue out in disgust.

Blake called, "here, here!" agreeing with her politician style.

Yang laughed. Joined by half of the group. Something about Cardin suffering just appealed to them so much. It was glorious.

Ruby had overheard the words passed between Ez and Goodwitch. "so how did you defeat the leader Grimm? Oh, and was it the one that made the roar?" she asked.

"yep. I just walked up to it and had a little chat." She gave them an evil grin, the group interpreted it as 'beat the living daylights out of it'. Ez heard their misinterpreted thoughts and let it go, if they wouldn't believe the truth, she won't force then to.

The evacuation ship arrived five minute later. They all flew back to Beacon.

And miraculously, not a single jar of sap had been broken in the Grimm attack.

* * *

Amber had been attacked. She had been attacked by three people, probably just older then teenagers, 17 to 20 years old was her best guess. She had been horrified when she was beaten, and even more so when she felt her maiden powers draining from her. it made her sick to the stomach, the pain was intolerable and intense. Her relief was evident when it stopped, she didn't know why, but it did. Oh, the joy she had felt at the time.

Then the nightmares started. All her worst dreams and memories came back to haunt her. she could feel her mind slipping away with each passing day? Hour? Second? She didn't even know anymore. It was all just one big blur of horror and fears. Her fears, not anyone else's.

Then it just stopped. A few words had traveled through her mind, repeating itself over and over again. She didn't understand their meaning but loved then none-the-less. Those words had driven the pain, fear and terror away, replacing it with a calm Amber couldn't remember existing. She didn't even care that these words also took the rest of her maiden power, she felt as if she owed it for saving her from the madness. It gave her the sleep she so wished of.

And now her vision was filled with white. Not a clear full color white, but a patterned white. It was more like a roof, or maybe she's going crazy. She had to be dead, no other way to describe it. This roof had to be a joke on her, promising a life she knew she had lost. It couldn't be real.

And yet… here it was, the only thing in her vision. Her head ached. Not like it was before, it just ached dully.

She lay? Yep, she was laying down, on the bed staring at the impossible roof. It was so pretty… even if it was just rectangles. The first real thing she has seen for the last…weeks? Months? Minutes? Who knew?

Amber tried to turn her head to the side unsuccessfully. In the attempt, she made an unconscious groan. She tried again. Hurray! Her head moved a centimeter. It moved such an inconspicuous amount that she was lucky to see the edge of the window on the wall.

It was dark outside, with the city lights in the distance. The broken moon above it all, shattered as usual. It was honestly much nicer then the roof, in Amber's opinion. Well, at least she knows it night time.

A head appeared.

She didn't recognize it, and it didn't look like any doctor of sorts. More like a teenager, 15, would be her guess. The flowing, long, pitch-black hair draped over her shoulders and her kind smile made her look young. But her eyes told a different story. A story of madness and horror, unlike anything she could even imagine. Her eyes a crimson red, much like blood, screamed for help, but also begging for no help. Her eyes were sad, but not, at the same time. As if she had forgotten what sadness was, or, forgot how to feel it. The eyes were strange to Amber, she had never experienced eyes like hers before, they scared her, and yet, she knew she could trust this girl. She knew this girl meant her no harm, and she knew this was the voice in her head. This child above her was the one to save her.

"your awake." She said, sort of happily. "wasn't expecting you to be. . . not yet, at least." The girls voice was so far off Amber was surprised she even heard it.

Amber tried to talk but couldn't get anything past her parched throat. It felt like a fire was brewing, with some shrapnel on the side. But it wasn't as bad as the pain she felt before.

The girl frowned in though, then smiled. As if she had read her mind, the girl grabbed a glass of water and tipped it up so Amber could drink. At first, it felt foreign, like she shouldn't be allowed this luxury. But eventually, her mouth and throat changed their minds and couldn't get enough of this wonderful stuff. She was disheartened when the glass was taken away.

The girl smiled again. "I know how you feel, But the glass is empty." She said in mock humor, refilling the cup. Amber drank another two glasses after the first, though, they were moderated so she didn't get sick.

After her drink the girl spoke again, "I guess I should do introductions now. Hello amber, my name is Ez. Nice to meet you." The now-named Ez grabbed her arm and shook it, well aware she can't move right now. Amber tried to smile, this was successful. _yay_, she thought, I can do something. Ez saw the smile and returned it with her own.

"your currently in Beacon academy infirmary. I've been informed that you were attacked six weeks ago."

Amber was perplexed. _Why am I here? Isn't this unsafe? What if I bring the people who attacked me to these children? They won't be able to protect themselves against my assailants, I wasn't able to, and I had the maiden powers_.

"Don't worry, your safer here than anywhere else, and you don't have to worry about the students, I've got that covered. You have nothing to fear." Ez put her thumb up and showed it to her.

_How did she know my thoughts? Am I that easy to read? _Amber thought to herself. Ez giggled a little.

"no, you're not easy to read. I can just hear what your thinking." She said.

Amber thought for a bit, Ez left her alone without interrupting. _It that your semblance or something?_ Amber though, curios if her experiment would work.

Ez hummed, "no. but call it that if you wish." She shrugged her shoulders.

Well, at least her experiment was successful, she didn't need to speak to communicate. And it looks like Ez caught on to her plan and was just rolling with it. . . oh well. Then Amber thought again. _If its not a semblance, then what is it?_

Ez let one bored laugh escape her mouth. "a skill of sorts. No, I'm not explaining further." Ez noticed the questioning glance Amber gave her.

_Hmm__. . .so, I'm at beacon. . .what next? _She asked. Ez's face lit up in an 'oh right' expression.

"well, then they put you in life support in a very secret place. When Oz mentioned you to me, I asked if I could see you, he let me. Then I took the parasitical Grimm that had been feasting on your mind out, and no, Oz and the others couldn't do anything about that. After that, I decided I would put the two pieces of the fall maiden power back together, so I took yours and I am yet to find the other half." She ended her sentence by putting her hand on fire. Amber was confused about most of that.

_Why would professor Ozpin mention me to you? No offence. _"none taken." Ez replied before Amber continued. _What do you mean by parasitical Grimm? Why were you the only one who could do something about it? And how are you going to fix magic?_

Ez laughed at the questioning. "you didn't get a single word, did you?"

_No._ was her fast reply.

Ez rolled her eyes. "me and Oz have been friends for a very long time." She held up her hand to stop further questions. "I'm a _lot_ older then I look. A parasitical Grimm is a type of Grimm that are basically parasites, but worst. They are very, very rare so it's no surprise that you, and Oz's little friend group, don't know of them. That's why they couldn't do anything about it, they didn't even know it was there." She pointed to herself proudly. "I, however, have uncounted them before and know how to deal with them. And I'm not answering your last question."

The two were silent as Amber processed this information. _Huh. . . so what now?_ She stared at the girl again, mesmerized by her eyes.

"well, I think Oz would like a word with you if you can sit up and speak now." She pointed with her thumb behind her. this is when Amber realized they weren't alone in this room. "but if you can't, don't force yourself to, I can translate.

Amber sat in silence for a bit. _I would like to give it a try. . . wait, this entire conversation, to Ozpin, did it seem as if you were talking to yourself?_

Ez smiled, answering both questions in one. "yep."

Ez clicked a button on a remote and the bed Amber was laying on started to move beneath her. it felt weird. A few minutes of mechanical sounds were heard, until they stopped, Amber was sitting up. She lifted her hand weakly and waved at the professor in the chair at the edge of the room, he was reading the newspaper. He nodded in response to her wave and put the paper down. He waited patiently for Amber to start talking.

She tried. And failed. She tried again. . . and failed. This is harder then it looked. One last time. She managed to open her mouth and form a sound. It was foreign to her ears and didn't quite sound right. _I'll try it later, when I'm less tired. _Then to Ez, _I give up, can you help? _

Ez smiled at her then looked at Ozpin, "I'm speaking for her." Ozpin nodded then gestured to continue.

_Um, hello? Professor Ozpin._

"hi Oz." Ez translated.

"hello Amber, nice to see you awake." Ozpin said. Amber smiled and continued with her rudimentary speech.

_What would you like to talk about?_

"you can start asking questions." Ez wasn't very good at this.

Ozpin looked at Ez, it was like he knew this isn't what Amber was saying. Amber didn't mine thought, this was her little way of speaking again.

"first off, how do you feel?" the headmaster asked genuinely.

_I'm tired and everything hurts, but otherwise ok. _

"good, but everything hurts." This time Ez said something similar to what she thought.

Ozpin nodded in understanding. _Oh wow, he can understand Ez even when she's horrible at this translating job._ Amber thought to herself.

"hay, I'm not that bad!" Ez exclaimed.

_Yes, you are._ Ez huffed in annoyance.

"did you see who attacked you?" Ozpin asked, ignoring Ez.

_Yes_.

"yep."

"could you describe them?" Amber's eyes hardened.

_Yes. The leader had black hair that covered her left eye. She wore a short red dre—_

"stop," her thoughts were interrupted. "instead of describing them can you picture them?" Ez asked. she then got up and grabbed something from a table top across the room. Amber saw it was a piece of paper and a pencil. She motioned for Amber to continue her thoughts, and she did.

She imagined the leader first. Her cruel smile and confident posture first, then all the little details about her; what she wore, the duel sword-bow she used, how she used them, the way she walked, and everything else she could remember. she imagined it all in her mind, her bright orange eyes, the black emblem tattooed on her back, her long black hair pushed over one shoulder, the waist height red dress with the blue feather accessory on her right hip. Her fighting styles, the way the patterns on her dress lit up whenever she attacked and how her partners grabbed her arms and pinned her, and how she put on a white glove and the black Grimm came out of it and oh god. She didn't want to think about that…that horrible woman anymore. It was too unbearable.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that, but I'm going to have to ask you to think about one of the other two now." Ez's voice sounded like she was trying to care. Amber brought herself to think about the awful day again. Ez changed the piece of paper she was drawing on.

_OK__…_ she responded before imagining the boy, no older then 18. This time she only imaged him standing still, in an effort to forget what he did. His short grey hair pulled to one side, the grey vest he wore, his shot-gun boots, the arm guards and the long trousers. He had a grey bandanna over his right hip and his eyes were grey. After a minute or two of holding the image, she let it go.

"cool, can you think about the last one? I know this isn't any fun, but it is very important."

Amber sighed, this was the one she disliked like the most. Her illusions tricked her to get off her horse and set her up for the ambush. _Make sure professor Ozpin knows about the illusions. _She thought to Ez.

"one of them can use illusions and is very good at it." She added. Ozpin nodded at this, it was valuable information. Ez changed the paper again. "ok, I'm ready." said Ez.

Amber let a puff of air out of her mouth like a sigh. _Got it… but this is hard._

"I know." Ez replied.

Amber then started picturing the last one, a girl of about 17 years old. She had mint-green hair with a straight fringe and two bangs hanging down at the back, much longer then the rest of her hair. she wore a dull green bra, one fingered gloves on her wrists and white pants and brown chaps on top. She was the least threatening one, but Amber hated her the most. She used two small scythe-guns that sheathed behind her. her emblem was on her back, a split gem. Her eyes were a bright red, not like Ez's, but more like Qrows.

Her mind traveled to Qrow, the last person she saw before passing out. He was her savior and hope in those last moments. She would have to thank him next time she saw him. Ez looked up from the drawing and saved this person in her memory for later, he seems interesting.

She continued her drawing, going off what Amber had been thinking before. When she was done, she showed then to the hospitalized girl.

"this look like them?" she asked.

Amber was appalled by the skill it took to draw these pictures, every stroke was in the right place, not a single one out of line, it was exactly like them. It was horrifying seeing her ambushers again. Except…they were in black and white now, and weren't attacking her, it was comforting, in a way. _Yes, they are perfect._ Amber answered the question. She looked at the girl and smiled sadly.

Ez smiled back, got off her seat and passed the pieces of paper to Ozpin, who studied then before turning back to the two girls.

"thank you Amber." His voice was comforting, "I have one more question for you and then I'll let you to be." he paused for dramatic effect. "Ez can give you the fall maiden's power when it's whole again. would you take it, or, better question, do you want it?" he asked.

Amber didn't know an answer. _I-I don't know._ She thought slowly, but Ez didn't translate. Instead, Ozpin spoke again.

"you don't have to answer now, and you don't even have to tell me, just Ez. you don't have to have it, it is your choice and yours alone. No one will think less of you if you choose not to keep it. Have a good night." He said before standing up and leaving, taking the pieces of paper with him.

There was pleasant silence for a bit. "why does he have to be so depressing sometimes?" Ez said loud enough for Amber to hear.

_It didn't sound so depressing to me…it sounded more worried or possibly accepting, but not depressing._ Amber replied, confused.

Ez gave her a toothy grin. "you can't read his thoughts." She said cryptically.

Amber scrunched up her forehead. _I thought you were reading my thoughts, not his._

Ez slumped in her seat. "I read everyone's thoughts unconsciously, It's so annoying." She sighed, "but, I learnt how to ignore it, so unless I want to know what their thinking, their thoughts just add to the pile of nonsense going in and out of my head." She said more happily.

_Huh…does it ever drive you insane? _Amber asked, giving Ez a glance.

Ez laughed loudly, there was no one else in the room so it was ok. "all the time…if you want, I can let you hear it." She said.

Amber gave her a curious glance, she really liked this girl. _How would you do that?_

"simple." She said crossing her arms in mock superiority. "I project my thoughts onto you, including everything I hear. It's nighttime, so it won't be as hectic as it can get."

Strength was slowly returning to Amber, so she shrugged, draining all her energy. _That was a bad idea. Sure, Ill give it a try. _They smiled at each other.

Ez reached her hand out and placed it on the side of Amber's head. Amber had this strange urge to close her eyes, too weak to resist, she compiled with the urge.

Suddenly voices filled her head, happy, sad, angry, cheerful, disgust, curiosity, the rush of emotions overtook her mind and she couldn't form her own thoughts over the flood of others. So many voices spoke in her head they drowned out each other, creating a huge jumble of words. It was hellish and chaotic.

Then, just as quickly as it came, it left. Amber sat there on the bed breathing heavily for many minutes. _How long was I listening?_ She asked.

Ez tapped the side of her cheek, "about half a second."

Amber was shocked by the answer if anything. She expected a short amount of time, but not that short. _And you deal with that every day?_ She thought, genuinely worried for the girl to her side.

Ez nodded glumly. "yep. Oh, but don't tell anyone. This is just a secret between you, Oz and I."

_I can do that, with me not being about to speak right now._ She said.

"that might be solved with a good night's rest. Speaking of which, you look tired. Do you want to try and sleep?"

Amber smiled weakly, only just realizing how tired she really was. _Yes please._ Ez grabbed the remote attached to the bed and clicked a button. Slowly, the bed lowered, Amber was laying down again.

"goodnight." Ez said softly. Walking to the door, Ez turned the light off.

_Goodnight. _Amber thought as Ez closed the door. She slipped off into a deep sleep, happy for the rest.

* * *

"why did you say I would give her the fall maiden power." Ez asked Ozpin. She was standing in front of his desk in his office. She wasn't angry at his, she was just curious.

Ozpin interlocked his fingers and placed them on the table in front of his, resting his head on top. "would you do it?" he asked, avoiding the question.

Ez hummed in thought. "she seems like a good kid and all, and will probably be perfect for the power, but after what happened before, I don't think she will want it." She was also avoiding the question.

The both know what each other were doing, a silly little game they play; avoid the question and annoy the other person.

But today, Ozpin needed an answer. "but would you do it." He asked again.

Ez shrugged, giving up. "if she wanted it, sure… but if she says no, don't go picking out one of your students, I won't give it to them." She glared at him harmlessly.

Ozpin tilted his head to the side, that _was _his next idea.

Ez turned and left. "well, goodnight. Make sure you sleep, unlike me, you need your beauty rest." She said before exiting the room.

Ozpin sighed, Ez is definitely more annoying then anyone else he has met in his entire life. He got up and left too, planning to sleep for the last few hours of the night.

* * *

**Hello everyone. And welcome to the… um… thing that gets put down here. If your wondering why the mind reading skill was never put in the previous chapters, it's because she had no reason to use it. In this case, she had been specifically asked by Ozpin to use it. She has been using it before, just hasn't really been paying attention to what she hears so i felt no reason to write it in.**

**If you have any questions or requests, please tell me so I can answer. It could make this more interesting.**

**See ya in the next chapter…when I write it.**


	10. Chapter 10

Ozpin was used to surprises in his career of headmaster of beacon and hunter of vale. He had met many people he believed not to exist, and he knew myths that were far from fake. Ozpin had met Ez on more than one occasion, each time years apart. Almost every time was through the mind and body of a different person. But she had almost never stayed in one place, and would almost always disappear within a week.

But this time it was different. Ez had stayed at beacon for two months now and didn't look like she wanted to leave anytime soon.

Ez had made friends with the two teams next door to her, RWBY and JNPR, and actively joined in the classes. Glynda had stopped giving her private lessons now, she learnt most common things within the first month. Glynda had taught her basic stuff a parent would teach their child, such as; what all the objects in the room was called, the importance of using names, and most importantly, don't eat the random things you find! Glynda was very happy when Ez followed her instructions.

Or, at least, when she was watching. She still ate just about anything dangerous she could find; random bits of metal lying around, explosives, dust (duh), and strange objects that shouldn't exist. By now, Ozpin was used to her weird hobby and didn't mind it in the slightest. She wouldn't die, after all. Glynda, however, was not accustom to it, and every time she caught Ez eating something strange, weird or out of the ordinary, she would punish her with extracurricular work. This never stopped Ez, in fact, it made her do it more. The work was just something to do during the night when everyone else needed to sleep.

Speaking of witch, he was curious how her friends haven't figured that one out yet. He had discovered that on the third day of knowing her, six thousand-ish years ago. Maybe Ez was actually trying to keep secrets for a change. _No, that's not like her…_ he thought to himself. It's more likely that the teams are just dense then that happening.

"Are you even listening to me?" a furious Glynda said. She was standing in front of the desk giving the headmaster a lecture about how unruly their immortal resident was.

Ozpin was knocked out of his thoughts. "yes." He said, obviously lying.

Glynda crossed her hands. "what did I just say." She didn't believe him.

Ozpin looked her in the eyes and said. "how horrible Ez is." This was an OK guess, she had started out rambling about the black-haired ageless child, and she had been complaining about her for the past two weeks.

Glynda looked at his sternly. And stared at him some more. "yes…I just don't see the reason why she's here. If Ez is as strong and ancient as she you say, why don't we put her on the front lines against you-know-who? You've said she's immortal, so it doesn't even matter if she's thrown into an obviously suicidal place. And why do you keep saying no?! it makes sense, doesn't it?" she said, continuing her rambling where she left off.

Ozpin was definitely going to have to do something about those thoughts. "Miss Goodwitch." He started, shutting off the other teacher. "if we were to force her into doing something she doesn't want to do, it is more likely she will join you-know-who's side. And trust me, Ez is even worse than you-know-who when she's angry. You have only seen Ez in her calm, happy, currently very weakened and very tired state. Yes, she is very weakened right now, but that was her own doing and she can easily reverse it at a moment notice. I say no because I would like to keep a calamity, that doesn't care that much, off our backs. Ez could easily just destroy all of remnant with a snap of her fingers, literally." His voice was calm and collected in the entire speech. Honestly, this scared Glynda ever more. And the power her strongest student held, it…it was just beyond imagination.

But she was still confused. "then why did I have to explain all those basic things to her last month?... and why does she get in trouble on purpose to get extracurricular work? … and why does she actually do it?!" Glynda asked, even more confused and angry then before.

"the last time I saw her was two hundred years ago, she's probably been sleeping the entire time. A lot of things change over two hundred years, mostly the language and the customs. Ez already knew how to use basic, every day, items…just not what they were called. That's why I got you to teach her." Ozpin Explained. Glynda accepted this as a reasonable answer but still wanted answers to the other two.

"…continue." She prompted.

Ozpin stared at Glynda for a couple of seconds before continuing. "Ez's sleeps differently from everyone else. Were we need to sleep every day; she only needs to sleep every couple thousand years. at those hours in the day, when the rest of the world is asleep, she is awake and bored with nothing to do. Ez gets in trouble deliberately to get work from any of the faculty members so she isn't bored at night. You're just the easiest, in her opinion." Glynda raised an eyebrow.

"where did you find this information?" she asked, her mind wandering slightly.

The headmaster nonchalantly shrugged. "she told me."

Glynda scrunched up her forehead and placed her head in her hand in frustration. Questioning these two will get her nowhere, there are just too many secrets between the two. And no matter how much she wants to know the answers; she knows it's not her place. "well, she doesn't do all the work." She countered.

Ozpin smiled a little. "yes." He agreed. "she does do history work very poorly."

Glynda hummed. "technically she does it…but her answers are so biased and one-sided. If I didn't know she was there, I would think she was trying to make us teachers laugh while making fun of whom ever or whatever the question was about."

"no, she is trying to do that. But Ez also doesn't like the authorities, in any time." Ozpin said.

Glynda looked at him with dead eyes. "why?" she asked, slightly amused.

Ozpin hummed, "they had the same ideas as you."

"oh…" she said simply. Glynda looked out the window behind the professor for a long time before asking. "what happened to the people who forced her into anything?" this was for her own safety.

Ozpin smiled. "after you hear this, don't treat her any differently from before, treat her like you a student. The people who forced her to do anything against her will all died very gruesome death by her hand, or she would destroy their kingdom just to piss them off. Then they would die. She really hated them." He said nonchalant.

Glynda was shocked, but, at the same time, not overly surprised. It seemed logical…to an extent. She asked "Ozpin. Why did you let her into the school?" her voice was calm. She just wanted to know.

Ozpin leaned forward on his chair and rested his elbows on his table. "because it seemed interesting." He said, pulling back and sitting normally.

Glynda stared at the headmaster for ages with a look of pure bewilderment. "THAT'S IT?!" she screamed angry. Ozpin nodded.

Glynda turned on her head and left the room, furious and confused. Ozpin spun around in his chair and looked out to vale. The city lights were on, glowing in the surrounding darkness. The broken moon watched above them all. He would never tell Glynda the real reason he let Ez into the school, it just wouldn't be right. After everything he seen, and everything he's been a part of;

He can't tell Glynda that he's terrified of Ez.

* * *

Ez lifted the bed over her head and placed it on top of one of the other ones in her room, upside down. Carefully balancing the two beds, she grabbed a third. This one will be harder to stack, it needed to go the right-way-up on top of the other two. The middle bed almost fell out of the ridiculous pile but Ez kicked it back into place. Finally, she placed the last one on top, upside-down. all four beds were stacked in a pile in the middle of her room.

Ez stepped back to admire her work. she looked at the clock to see how long it took her. The light up clock showed 11:32. It had taken Ez 4 minutes to stack the beds…how sad. She had hoped it would entertain her in any sort of way for a longer amount of time. _Of well, lets think of something new to do._ She thought to herself, ready to explore her next crazy idea.

Turns out, that idea was, lay in the middle of the beds and eavesdrop on the conversation between Glynda and Ozpin…again. For the last week Glynda had done nothing but rant to the headmaster about how much they should sent her to the front lines against Salem, not that it would achieve anything. Ozpin had slowly, very slowly, started to lose his patience, a hard thing to achieve for anyone other than herself. But he didn't show it. Either way, she listened to what he said, changing little facts in her mind.

For starters, she wouldn't just kill the person in power, that would be no fun. she only kills them if she felt like it. Usually, she would spend her time slowly destroying everything they love and care about _then_ kill them. And on the slight chance she didn't do either of them and she really likes the current leader and they bribed her with something and will almost certainly _not_ be boring… then she _might_ decide to go do what they asked. But that doesn't happen often.

In this case, where the person in power is her friend, namely Oz, and the one trying to force her into something is the deputy; she would kill Oz and go meet his next reincarnation while extremely traumatizing Glynda. Only if they actually do something. As it stands, they're just talking behind her back, and it hilarious. Glynda's emotions were everywhere, did she want to be happy or sad, confused or angry, annoyed or forgiving? It was so confusing.

Its times like these that makes Ez happy she's not human. They always seem to have too much on there mind. not that she doesn't, its just different.

Ez has other peoples minds in her own, her thoughts were separate and easy to find in the mess going on in her head. Humans minds were stuck with annoying, pesky things called emotions. Sometimes they can get so confused with them they don't even realize what there thinking, it silly sometimes. They have one emotion to make them want to get closer to someone else, then another to make them avoid and hesitate.

Otherwise known as love and fear.

"_well, she doesn't do all the work."_ She heard Glynda speak. No, that's not right. She can hear the sentence Glynda's saying out loud because she's thinking before she speaks. Everyone does it unconsciously, whatever they say goes through their mind whether they like it or not. That's what she's hearing, not the actual spoken words…though, if she _tried_, she might just be able to…

"_yes. she does do history work very poorly."_ Ozpin thought and spoke.

Well duh. She didn't like that subject, the teacher was great and all, even with his ridiculous coffee high, but the subject was sooooooo wrong. Everyone makes guesses on what happened before their time but depending on how far back it was depends how accurate they are. If it happened a decade ago, they can get almost a perfect representation of what happened, however if they're trying to look back a couple centuries or so, then they get mislead by everything. Sometimes, the only thing surviving that much time is just one single book on fairy tales. Historians assume that it's a religion or a way of life, and sometimes its justified, but most of the time it just pure nonsense.

So, you have to try and understand her point of view on this, she was almost certainly correct with whatever it was she wrote about when it includes history. For her, it was just recalling what happened earlier, and her memory is pretty much perfect, all things considered. but she just doesn't _care_.

So, a class dedicated towards her past is just boring, she is even considering not turning up…but that would be rude to the teacher. Dr Oobleck is a great teacher, and she was _trying_ to stay on his good side…she just wasn't being very successful in the attempt. Oh well, that's something to worry about later.

A lot of time had passed in her musing, and the conversation between the two professors had processed further then expected. _"Ozpin. Why did you let her into the school?"_ Glynda said.

Ez giggled. Ozpin was never going to tell Glynda _that_! He had a reputation to uphold and everything, can't go around being afraid of what looks like a teenager. Her guess was proven right when the emotion of pure terror radiated off Ozpin, not that Glynda noticed.

"_because it seemed interesting."_ Ozpin said. Ez just giggled more, missing the rest of the conversation.

She lay there in her stack of beds, surprised that it didn't fall over, laughing at the headmaster's misfortune of meeting her.

Ez settled down and prepared for another day of school.

* * *

Before anything happened today, heck, before most students even thought about waking up, Ozpin called Ez to ask her to come to his office, she compiled.

He looked at her when she entered. There was a card on his desk, off to his left. Its purpose, she hadn't the faintest clue, but she did know other students held them sometimes, especial the Schnee heiress.

"I take it your planning to stay longer." Ozpin said. It wasn't a question.

Ez just nodded. She was having fun here, why should she leave just yet?

Ozpin slid the card professionally across the table, it was obvious he was telling her to take it. She did, flipping it over in her hand to examine it. The light blue card had a name on it, Ezper Grey, she took that as a name he made up for her…again. It had the lien symbol in a corner, a bunch of rectangles in another and a boat load of numbers across its entire length. On the other side was a thick black line.

"what's this for?" she said, slightly perplexed.

Ozpin smiled softly. "it's a bank card, you can use it to buy items or resources. I went to the effort of making it for you in case you have a desperate need to get something. I've also put some lien on it so you should be fine as far as finances are concerned."

"huh." Ez said, flipping the card over again to see if she missed something. "how much?"

Ozpin leaned back in his chair. "about 2 billion lien." He said calmly.

Ez blinked. She had been here long enough to realize that's not a small amount. She raised her eyebrow in an unspoken question.

He answered. "I earn a lot with my job of both a headmaster and hunter, not to mention the lien I've transferred from previous lives." He shrugged at the end, not much of a big deal, in his opinion.

Ez gave him a bored expression before pocketing the card. "riiiiight." She said. Her mood changed instantly. "anything else?" she asked.

Ozpin nodded. "its pin code is 4321." He spun around in his chair and looked out the window as Ez left the room.

* * *

Today was a weekend, yay. Team RWBY had plans to go down to the docks and meet students coming from the other schools for the Vytal festival, curtasy of Weiss. Team JNPR were touching up on their team attacks and such, so boring stuff. Ez, like any normal bored deity, went with the team RWBY to the docks.

So here they were, walking down the not so busy street as a sign was put up above their heads by the dust-shop owner ruby met two months ago.

Weiss Exclaimed practically in glee. "the Vytal festival! Oh, this is absolutely wonderful!"

Ruby put her hand on her hip and answered skeptically. "I don't think I've ever seen you smile this much Weiss." She raised an eyebrow, "it's kinda weirding me out." She added, more to herself then the group.

Weiss spun around, a huge smile on her face. "how could you not smile? A festival dedicated to the cultures of the world! There will be dances, parades, a tournament! Oh, the amount of planning and organisation that goes into this event is simply breathtaking." She said, literally skipping along for a bit, the group quickly followed her.

Ez cringed at the paper work needed for this kind of thing, she had enough of that to do at home. Yang sighed and crossed her arms. "you really know how to take a good thing and make it sound boring."

"I second that." Ez said putting her hand up.

"quiet you." Weiss said sternly. Earlier excitement lost.

They turned a corner to meet a boat horn blasting in the distance.

Yang spoke sarcastically. "remind me again why where spending our Saturday morning visiting the stupid docks?" Ez agreed with her, the ocean was her least favorite place, not that she has anything against it, she just didn't have any reason to like it.

Ruby sighed sadly. "it smells like fish."

Weiss promptly ignored the second comment. "I heard that students from Vacou will be arriving today, and as a representative of Beacon I feel as though it is my solemn duty to welcome them to this fine kingdom." The boat horn blasted again, and she turned around, walking off to the direction of the docks.

"I don't get it." Ez said, slightly confused but too lazy to read the heiresses mind.

Luckily, Blake understood it perfectly and explained it the her. "she wants to spy on them to get the upper hand in the tournament."

"oh." Ez replied.

Weiss stopped walking and turned on Blake harshly, crossing her arms. "you can't prove that." She said.

"whoa." Ruby pause at the entrance of a street they were passing, a building at the far end of the street was smashed in and clearly in shambles. An immense amount of warning tape was up around the windows and the front door. It didn't look the best.

Everyone else paused to look when Ruby did, they were interested. That interest was dampened when they saw what it was. They walked over to the break in quietly.

There were two detectives on the scene writing notes and speculating what happened to themselves. They didn't look too impressive, and a quick look into their mental state showed Ez that these two were racist nincompoops, just the person you need on a case. The detective reminded Yang of the men she beat up in juniors pub. They really didn't look right for the job, but they were the police, so she won't complain, don't want to be arrested and all.

"What happened here?" ruby asked worried.

The police men, obviously never heard of holding information from the public, happily told her his thoughts on the matter. "robbery, second dust shop to be hit this week." He stopped writing notes down and turned away from them to watch the building. Under his breath he added, "this place is turning into a jungle." He walked off towards his partner.

Ez could see the supposed notes the detective had been taking was actually a drawing on a cartoon character Ruby had shown her on her scroll, a yellow square guy that lived underwater in a pineapple, she didn't get it but ruby seemed to like the cartoon. This just confirms her thoughts on the unworthy detective.

Yang sighed and put her hand on her hip sadly, "that's terrible." She said to the group.

"they left all the money again!" Exclaimed the partner of the cartoon drawing detective. Everyone overheard it but ruby was the only one with an outward appearance. She breathed in with recognition and confusion, it was just like the Torchwick guy that she stopped from robbing a dust shop two moths ago.

The partner put his arms into his pockets, "yeah, just doesn't make any sense. Who needs that much dust?" he asked no one in particular.

The original detective answered bored, "I don't know, am army?" he waved his drawing around to prove his point, not that it achieved anything.

The partner replied, waving his gun around and taking his glasses off in one motion, "you thinking the white fang." He speculated, the racist prat. Ez was tempted to punch him in the face but decided it would be a waste of time.

The original replied very annoyed with being here, "no I'm thinking we don't get paid enough." He said before walking off in the direction of the police station.

RWBY, having heard the entire conversation because the detectives don't know how to lower their voices, formed a sort-of semi-circle, Weiss was the first to talk. "Hmph! The White Fang." She said in disdain, she closed her eyes, raised her nose in superiority and crossed her arms. "What an awful bunch of degenerates!" she commented.

_Of right, Weiss is a racist too. Forgot about that._ Ez thought to herself. Blake glared at her teammate and said the most words she has said today. "what's your problem?" she was clearly annoyed at the heiress.

Weiss took an offended tone. "_my_ problem? I just don't care for the criminally insane!"

Blake's glare only increased more. "the White Fang is hardly a bunch of psychopaths." She countered, crossing her arms and taking on a much more serious tone. "they're a collection of misguided Faunus."

Ez was enjoying this banter, it was more interesting than the port anyway. Though if she had to choose a side, she would pick Blake. After all, the Faunus had been on this planet longer then the humans by a rather far margin.

Weiss took immense offence from this, "Misguided? They want to wipe humanity off the face of the planet!" she practically yelled.

And so, Blake almost yelled back, "then they're _very_ misguided!" she calmed down a little bit, "Either way, it doesn't explain why they would rob a dust shop in the middle of downtown Vale."

Ruby and Yang where not enjoying this as much as Ez was, they where trying to stop this argument before it got too bad, and seeing her opportunity, Ruby did. "Blake's got a point. Besides, they still haven't caught that Torchwick guy I ran into a few months ago, maybe it was him." She offered, giving both girls a chance to drop the conversation. Blake, seeing her plan, dropped it, Weiss on the other hand, just had to get the last word.

"That still doesn't change the fact that the White Fang are a bunch of scum." She insulted, "Those Faunus only know how to lie, cheat, and steal."

Yang tried to break her argument, key word- tried. "that's not necessarily true..." She wasn't heated for a change and was attempting to enjoy their team day out.

Weiss looked at Yang until a call from the port consolidated her point. "Hey, stop that Faunus!" a sailor yelled from the boat they had seen docking into the harbor before.

RWBY rushed down the street to see what was going on. They were met with the sight of a blond hair and tailed monkey Faunus ran down the length of the Boat and jumped onto the port while commenting sarcastically. "Thanks for the ride guys!" he laughed to himself on the way down.

_Well, isn't that convenient…_ Ez thought to herself.

The Monkey Faunus landed softly and ran down the harbor, stopping only to hang upside down from his surprisingly strong tail on a very fancy lamp post. One of the sailors yelled to the retreating form of the blond.

"You no good stowaway!" shaking his hand in irritation.

The blond wasn't even facing him, but somehow, him and RWBY heard what was yelled.

Hanging from the lamp post he pealed a banana skin off and yelled back cheerfully. "Hey! A no-good stowaway would have been caught. I'm a great stowaway!" he self-praised.

Ez commented on the scene before them, "He's got a point."

The detectives from before, having conveniently heard the commotion and came to investigate, through a rock at him to get his attention. He dodged, still hanging from his tail.

"Hey, get down from there!" the lien-hungry detective yelled annoyed.

The Faunus didn't even respond, he just shoved his banana in his mouth and threw the peal at the officer, who growled in response to being humiliated. The monkey Faunus swung around the lamp post and crouched on top of it, laughed in amusement, jumped off with a triple back-flip, and sprinted off, up the stairs and past RWBY. Time seemed to slow down to Blake when he passed, Blinking to her. He ran off.

"well Weiss, you wanted to see the competition…and there it goes." Yang said, lightly gesturing towards the running Faunus.

Weiss put her hand up as if to point at the sky, "quick, we need to observe him." She said, proving Blake correct, she really did want the upper hand in the tournament. She ran off, in the direction of the stowaway. RWBY followed her. Ez decided it might be more fun, so she ran off with then too.

They turned a corner, gaining distance on the two detectives, who were losing ground between them and the Faunus. He'd get away at this rate, but it didn't dissuade Weiss, she wanted information and if the speed they run at is the best they can do, then so be it.

They turned another corner.

Weiss didn't slow down in time to keep herself from crashing into the girl on the street, not that she realized. She looked up and watch the Faunus jump up a few buildings with his tail, laughing all the way. "No, he got away!" she exclaimed, clearly distressed about that.

Weiss was laying on top of a young girl with short, curly orange hair with a pink bow attached, her green eyes and admittedly cute smile undeterred by the white girl currently laying on her. Freckles littered her cheeks, it also added to her overall cuteness. She was wearing a whitish-grey old-fashion blouse with short grey feminine overalls, as well as black stockings with a matching black and green collar.

"uhm…Weiss?" Yang said, drawing the heiress's attention to the girl she was laying on. Quickly she got up, leaving the smiling girl on the ground.

Ez looked at her skeptically, _something is definitely wrong with her…_ she thought. Very curious now, she brought her hand up to her eyes, she was at the back of the group, so no one saw as her eyes momentarily turned pitch black, allowing her to see in souls. Unlike most people, she has two sets of eyes; the normal-looking ones that she told RWBY and JNPR are just illusions, and her real pair, the ones that allow her to only see souls and traces of souls. Everything but the outline of objects transforms into a dark grey and people start to glow, radiating their soul. She can even see though buildings, as they aren't souls.

The stronger a soul or aura, the brighter the person burns. A soul is made to burn wild and free, if controlled, an owner can project it and order it to do things such as aura shielding or attacks, but a soul will retain its ability to roam freely. The city was littered with dull sparks of light, informing her there is a person there but their aura wasn't unlocked, and they probably live very dull lives. Then there were the few, like RWBY that burned brightly, lighting up the surrounding area in their immediate vicinity. Ruby's was a light crimson red with a dull silver glow where her eyes should be, Weiss' was a light white with the hint of a very light blue, Blake's was a dark pupley black with a brighter purple for her ears, and yang's was a bright burning yellow much like fire.

A soul would tell her about the owner's personalities, for example; ruby would be cheerful, socially awkward, weapon's junky, sugar lover, locked silver eyed, and potentially very powerful. Don't ask how she can see all this from a colour, she just can. Same goes for everyone else she's met.

Except the young girl laying on the floor.

Her soul, if it could be called that, flowed through specific routes, as if it was fundamentally different. Getting a closer look, it was like she was a robot or something, made for the sole purpose of being a powerful yet learning girl, Ez wasn't sure what to think about it. The girl in front of her is the representation of how far humanity has progressed, yet at the same time it was like the girl was trapped within herself. _Weird…_ she had seen things similar to this in her lifetime, how could she not? She had lived through the life-span of many civilizations, heck, worlds even… many of them. But never had they actually made an artificial life with a free soul. And the girl on the ground was no exception.

Giving something a soul is easy, they eventually gain one with contact with humans or other creatures. All plants and animals have one so its not too rare for a robot to get one, either it be by the love of someone around then, the amassed contact and emotions felt for the thoughtless thing eventually giving it a small spark of a soul, or literally creating a robot that has freedom and thought capacity, where they just grow a soul after it's started by someone else's emotions. By the sheer size of the orange-haired girl's soul Ez gathered that the creator must love her dearly. But her soul isn't like most others, it followed exact paths or wires, not quite free.

_Welp, that's probably why she felt odd._ Ez thought, touching her eyelid again and changing its colour back to the deep crimson red it was before. _Or maybe it's because I can't hear her thoughts…_ she added; the girl _was_ a robot.

"Sal-u-ta-tions!" the girl on the ground said, holing her hand up in greeting.

Ruby was the first to respond. "umm… hello." She said hesitantly.

Yang looked down at her in worry. "Are you…okay?" she tilted her head in question.

The girl on the ground said, more happy and cheerful then before, if it were possible, "I'm **wonderful!** Thank you for asking."

RWBY share a confused and bewildered glance, excluding Ez who was just staring at the girl in the usual way she does. Yang was the one to announce their shared question. "do you… wanna get up?"

The girl's eyes turned dull for a second while she thought. "Yes!" she said, springing herself up. RWBY take a step back from the strange girl, Ez didn't; she knew why she was weird, this was only expected of the obviously curious robot. They were now, conveniently, standing in a line. "My name is Penny! It's a pleasure to meet you." She continued.

Ruby responded, taking the weird kid in strides. "hello Penny. I'm Ruby."

Everyone else taking their cue from their leader introduced themselves.

"I'm Weiss." The heiress said proudly.

"Blake." She answered simply.

"are you sure you didn't hit your head." Yang said, it was met by an elbow curtesy of Blake, "Oh, I'm Yang." She fixed.

"I'm Ez." Penny's gaze lingered on Ez for a little longer then the rest, just behind her eye's numbers were streaming back and forth as she analysed her. Unless you were looking for it like Ez, you would miss it entirely.

Penny's results: Ez didn't exist.

She would study that later, for now, she was meeting people. "it's a pleasure to meet you!" she said before anyone noticed her staring.

Weiss raised an eyebrow in confusion at penny. "you already said that."

Penny eyes turned dull again as she processed this information and lit up again when she was done a few seconds later. "so I did."

Weiss spun around awkwardly, "Well, sorry for running into you." She said, trying to get away from the clearly crazy girl.

Blake and Yang followed her while Ruby waved and said stiffly, "see ya round, friend." The four were walking away. Penny's eyes opened wide in surprise while she looked at the retreating form of ruby. Ez watched her walk off in chase of the red cloaked girl.

Ez laughed quietly to herself, _pfft… wow, a robot really doesn't have much of a social life._ She followed the group.

The four were walking away down a side street when Yang voiced all their thoughts, again, "she was… weird…"

Weiss nodded in agreement before continuing their previous search. "Now, where did that Faunus riff-raff run off to?" she asked no one in particular, looking to her right in the hope he will just appear.

Ez was following Penny as she circled around the group to appear in front of them. Waiting for the team to be in hearing range she asked hopefully. "what did you call me." The group mistook it, especially yang.

Yang looked at Penny apologetically, "i-im sorry, I definitely didn't think you heard me." She said, waving her hands around for emphasis.

Penny waved her away, not even glancing at her. She was staring down ruby. "no not you." She lightly pushed her way though the four people, stopping in front of the leader. "**you!**" she said.

Ruby leaned back startled by the accusation. "_Me?_ I-I don't know. I, what I, um, uh…" she said, looking at her friends for help, they were as confused as she was.

"You called me friend. Am I _really_ you friend?" Penny said very hopefully.

Ruby suddenly realized what she was asked, "umm…" and she didn't know the answer. So, she looked at her teammates to help her with this…they were all motioning 'NO' with every sort of gesture they could think of. Ruby, unable to see the gestures for what they meant, interpreted them into 'go ahead' or 'absolutely'. She looked back at Penny who was patiently waiting for an answer. "Y-yeah, sure. Why not?"

Her entire team fell over comically, their eyes even turning into blank white circles.

Penny jumped for joy, literally. "Sen-sational! We can paint our nail, and try on new clothes, and talk about cute boys." She said, clearly enjoying the idea of a friend.

Ruby cringed and spoke to Weiss softly, who had gotten up. "is this what it was like when you met me?" she groaned at the though.

Weiss dusted herself off before replying "no. she seems far more coordinated." She said curtly.

Before anyone could say anymore about the subject, or any other, for that matter. They were all drawn to the sound of someone giggling, it grew into a laugh, until Ez was holding her side and laughing her head off at the strange but hilarious _thing_ she just watched. Everyone waited for her to calm down before Yang asked, "what's so funny?"

Ez wiped away an imaginary tear, "I haven't laughed that much in years…" she said under her breath, still with a smile on her face. Louder, "oh I don't know, maybe, everything!" she said in mock humor at the group of five people in front of her. She then looked at Penny warmly, "I'll be your friend too, if you want."

Penny took a breath in surprise. Then jumped for joy again. "Really! Oh, yes please." She asked absolutely ecstatic.

Ez gave her a small smile, over her laughing fit. "sure, no harm in another friend." She explained.

Penny was jumping again, unable to contain her happiness anymore she grabbed Ruby and Ez into a massive bear hug, literally lifting them both off the ground and spinning them in circles. Ruby was over reacting, swinging her arms around in worry, trying not to fall out of Penny's hands. Ez was giving everyone a black stare as she was spun around patiently waiting for her new friend to put her down.

She did.

Ez dusted herself off, "so, where are you from?" it was a logical question, now that she can't read her mind…

"oh, I'm from Atlas." Penny said, happy to supply answers.

Yang scratched her head in thought, "so… why are you in Vale?"

Penny lit up with excitement, "I'm here to fight in the tournament." She smiled confidently.

The heiress stared at her in confusion. "wait, you're here to fight in the tournament?" if this was her opponent, what was she so worried about?

Penny smiled at her and gave her a half-ass salute, "I'm combat ready!" she said proudly.

Weiss looked skeptical, "forgive me, but you hardly look the part." She crossed her arms.

Blake, still angry with Weiss' comments about Faunus from before, retorted, "says the girl wearing a dress." she was almost mad.

Weiss looked at her as if she was better then everyone else and said, "it's a combat skirt."

Ruby used her speed semblance to get this once-in-a-life-time chance. "yeah!" she said, copying Weiss and trying to be all 'gangster' like. Weiss put her hand out and Ruby takes it, extremely happy inside, they low-five.

The heiress suddenly gets an realization. "wait a minute," she walked up to Penny and grabbed her shoulders, "if you're here for the tournament does that mean you know that monkey-tailed… rapscallion?" she said thinking of the word on the spot.

Penny, perfectly fine with being shaken by Weiss, looked blank. "the who now?" she asked, just like she was taught.

Now definitely sure that she knew, Weiss held up a crudely drawn picture of a circle-man with a tail, sticking it's tongue out. "the filthy Faunus from the boat."

"he looked pretty clean to me." Ez added, only to ruby and yang, as they were conveniently next to her… and because Blake had started talking when she did.

"why do you keep saying that." She asked, angry but trying to keep it out of her voice, don't want to blow her cover and everything.

Weiss intellectually, as always, replied with the sophisticated, "Huh?" of confusing, not expecting to be interrupted by her teammate.

Still trying to keep the angry out of her voice, but failing, she continued, walking towards Weiss at the same time, "stop calling him a rapscallion, stop calling him a degenerate. He's a _person_." She said sternly.

The white-haired huntress-in-training took offence from this and took a step forward towards Blake. "oh, I'm sorry." She said sarcastically, letting go of Penny, who smartly joined the audience. "would you like me to stop referring to the trash can as a trash can? Or this lamp post as a lamp post?" pointing to each object as she said it.

Ez looked at them and walked forward, speaking at the same time as Blake did. "Sto-"the Black themed teen started.

"you refer to the trash can, as a trash can because it _is,_ in fact, a trash can." She said, gesturing to the trash can. "and you refer to that lamp post, as a lamp post, because it_ is_, in fact, a lamp post." She looked Weiss in the eyes, scaring her just a little bit. "and you refer to the _Faunus _as. A. _Faunus."_ She paused to emphasize her point. "not a degenerate or a rapscallion or filthy. They are people, just the same as you." She poked Weiss hard in the chest.

Her argument didn't work out the way she planned, and she knew it as soon as she started speaking. Weiss wasn't even taking her seriously. The white themed teen put her hands up as if to shrug, "now your taking her side?" before Ez could answer she continued, "besides, he clearly broke the law."

"he didn't. he brought a ticket just like the other twenty people catching a lift on that ship. He was being chased because he pinched a banana off the captain." Ez said, eyes strong.

Sadly, Weiss' eyes were disrespectful and spiteful. "and how would you know that." She said in a manner that asked for no questions.

Ez sighed, "I just do."

Weiss looked back at Blake hatefully, "see, she can't even prove it. Give him time that monkey-tailed _degenerate_ will just join up with the White Fang." She said on purpose to annoy the two girls.

Ez sighed, she tried and she's too lazy to do anything else. If it were Cardin, she would happily punch her in the face, as she has already done, but it was her '_friend'_ and had appearances to uphold. Ez turned on her heel and walked back to the group, grabbing Penny by the collar of her shirt and dragging her along. "you can deal with those two. Also, no matter what happens, don't judge Blake differently." She said as she passed the two sisters, confusing them both.

Penny looked at the startled Ruby, smiled and waved while still being dragged behind Ez like a little child. "bye Friend." She said cheerfully.

While Ez was doing this, she got totally ignored by the two arguing girls.

"you ignorant little brat!" Blake clenched her fist at her racist teammate. And here she thought she would tell them her secret heritage_. Screw that! Not with this little bitch living with me_. She counter-argued with herself. Blake turned around and walked away, in a different direction from the one Ez dragged Penny on.

Weiss was angry at her now, watching Blake insult her to her face! "how dare you talk to me like that." Her Schnee background coming back as strong as ever as she yelled at Blake. "I am your teammate!"

Blake crossed her arms and waited for Weiss to come closer. "_you_ are a judgmental little girl." She stated.

Weiss opened her mouth in shock. "What in the world makes you say that!" they started having a verbal battle with many, _many _rude words.

Yang speaks softly to ruby, glancing at the other people on the street, "we… should probably go…" she said.

"yeah… I wish I went with Penny." Ruby replied regretfully.

Instead of trying to break up the argument, the two sisters each grabbed one of the girls by the collar and dragged them along like Ez did for Penny. The argument never stopped throughout the entire journey back to their dorm room, but some where along the way, Weiss and Blake started walking by themselves.

* * *

"where are we going?" Penny asked cheerfully as she was dragged by the nonexistent entity.

Ez hummed. "the shops. I was given money earlier this week and I wanna go get some things." Ez let go of Penny so she could walk by herself.

"ok." Penny said, walking next to Ez easily. "why am I coming."

Ez looked at her while walking, "because I don't know how to use this thing." She said, holding up her bank card.

Penny analysed it. "I don't know either, I've always had someone else get stuff for me." She said cheerfully. "is your name Ezper Grey?" she asked, Ez had only introduced her self as 'Ez' not 'Ezper', so she was curious.

"nope." She said, popping the 'p'.

Penny tilted her head in confusion. "then why does it say Ezper Grey?"

Ez smiled childishly, "because Oz decided I needed a proper name."

Penny's face lit up in recognition, "is Ozpin the one that made you?" it was a pretty good guess, since she is a robot and guess that Ez might be a more sophisticated Robot.

If Ez had been drinking anything, it would've come out in a giant comical spit stream. "NO." she said between laughter. "where did you get that idea?" she asked, then immediately regretted it as Penny started looking around nervously.

"umm-I, uh. Don't know." She hiccuped. Ez raised her eyebrow at that.

Ez smiled, "don't worry, you don't have to say anything if you don't want to." Then gesturing to a building, she said, "this is one of the shops I want to go to."

The building was a two-story industrial-sized bedding shop. It had bed posters and sales in every window. Walking through the front door, Penny noticed the walls where a tan colour, with pink dots littered everywhere, it didn't suit the room.

"why would you want to come here?" Penny asked, scratching her head the way her father does when he's perplexed. She didn't really understand the entire concept of sleep, at night she stayed up and watched TV. Her own personal TV has all these kid's shows on it like My little pony, SpongeBob SquarePants, the wiggles, Dora the Explorer, and many others. It was great.

Ez lead the way to the pillow section. "I wanna build a giant pillow fort." She said, grabbing a pillow and testing it for key parts such as; fluffiness, awesomeness, softness, and everything else you need to make a great pillow fort. Penny breathed in with excitement and squealed.

"can I help you?!" she asked overexcited.

Ez shrugged, "sure, I have nothing against it." She grabbed a couple more pillows and masterfully stacked then on her outstretched hand. There were as least ten or fifteen there, and Penny was stacking more pillows on her own hand but a little less than Ez, she wasn't very good at this, even with her many stabilizers.

Carefully walking over to the blankets, the two girls grabbed three each, then enough pillow cases and blanket covers for twice as many as they had. They gained many weird looks and strange stares as they added to their straight tower of pillows.

Except for this little boy who wanted very much to copy them, he didn't do so well, but the two girls gave him the thumbs up before his mother came rushing over to get him away from the obviously insane girls.

Deciding they had enough for an impressive fort, Ez motioned Penny towards the counter. The two girls carefully placed the two sky high towers on the checkout and waited for the lady to scan them all. It wasn't helping that she had fallen asleep at the job and her co-worker was saying something about "fainting" or what not.

Eventually the big boss dude came out and sorted it out and Ez and Penny got serviced, but…the towers fell over. Luckily, no one was hurt as it was just pillows and blankets, but Ez and penny needed a new was of carrying their stuff, apparently balancing them isn't good enough.

Penny watched over the person at the check register, very interested how the holding-beeping-red-light-thingy worked. Apparently, it was used to find the price of the things they want to buy; the red light scanned the black line on the object and the price would appear on the register's screen.

Ez started swinging her hands in a circle. Starting out as a small black dot, it grew to the size of a tennis ball, then to the size of a human head. Her little portal was opening to her room, as she was too lazy to carry her stuff around in an exciting manner. The black swirl was the size of the human body now.

Grabbing all the scanned items, Ez chucked them haphazardly into the darkness. When this was done, she clapped her hands and the portal blinked out of existence. She walked up to the startled check-out man and a smiling Penny. Ez took her card out of her pocket and passed it to the startled, working human.

"can you show he how to use this?" she said.

The brown-haired young male working stumbled on his words. "uh-umm, you, um, put the, uh, card over to this thing here, and um… do this." He showed Ez and Penny, who were giving him looks of 'he's all knowing', how to slide the card down the side of the machine so it could read it and deduct the money from the bank account. Well, until it started asking for a pin. "um, miss. Do you know the pin?" he asked when the machine beeped again. Ez was putting random numbers in, what did this machine want with her?!

Ez looked at him. "oh…yes." Ozpin did tell her a 'pin'. Why didn't he say it was more important? She typed in the pin code and the machine beeped gratefully, the two clueless girls sighed. Finally, the card-eater was happy. Ez replaced the card in her pocket.

The man waved at them as they left. "h-have a nice day." He called before returning his attention back to the line of people waiting to be served.

The two girls left, Penny skipping down the street next to her friend. "where did the pillows go?" she asked out of curiosity more than anything.

"I've teleported them to my room at beacon." Ez said.

Penny took a breath in surprise. "you go to beacon?" she said, "that's so cool! Does that mean you're a huntress-in-training?" she asked, eyes slightly going in and out of focus like a camera lens.

Ez put her hand up in a 'sort of' gesture, "I suppose so, but I don't really want to be a huntress and I'm really only attending beacon because it seemed like a great way to kill time. Also, I'm stronger than any huntsmen or huntress you'll ever meet." She said with a slightly embarrassed tone in her voice.

The two girls tuned a corner in comfortable silence. Penny activated her scanners, now is a good a time as any to figure out exactly what her friend was, it perplexed her.

Penny results: Ez didn't exist, she was an anomaly that wasn't there and was at the same time. All her danger warnings were going off but none of them ringing, as if she was dangerous but didn't intend to be. What Penny could see of Ez looked as though it was just a skin, worn over something… a darkness, or light, its hard to tell. It was weird.

"hey Ez," penny started. "what are you?" her voice was slightly worried but not nearly as much as it should be.

Ez looked at her then into the distance of the street. "an anomaly." She said, "I did something very bad and very good, at the same time, in the past, and because of that I don't technically exist anymore." Ez explained.

Penny looked heartbroken; her second friend must have lived an awful life. Then Penny smiled like a child and jumped on Ez and gave her the biggest hug she could muster. It was surprising that Ez's bones didn't crack. When she was put down Ez continued.

"well you know I'm not human, so I might as well tell you that I know that you're not human either." Penny looked startled before putting on a slightly scared and defensive front.

"how did you…" she dropped the question, glancing at the only other person on the street.

Ez looked at Penny and raised a hand to one of her eyes. It changed colour for an instant, just enough time for Penny to see it, before returning to its crimson red. "I can see souls, yours is just different." She smiled.

Understanding flooded Penny as she analysed the answer. Quietly she followed Ez into another shop. This one was called 'Tukson's book trade'. The little door bell chimed as they entered the bookshop.

a Faunus perked up at the counter when the chime sung thought the room. "welcome to Tukson's book trade, home to every book under the sun. how may I help you?" he asked.

Penny shrugged, Ez smiled and looked at him. "my friend told me this place had good books so I was wondering if you could recommend some for me."

For the next few hours Ez spend her time in the bookshop with Tukson, they became good friends. Half-way through the shopping trip, Penny got a text from her supervisors, she said she had to leave. By the end of her shop she had a good two bags full of books to read and another friend.

It was night by the time she got back to beacon, catching the last Bullhead there. On her way back to the dorms she spotted Blake and the monkey Faunus walking away from Beacon.

Curious, Ez read their minds and figured out what had happened while she was gone. Oh, and the monkey Faunus's name was Sun. _well, Blake has a friend, so she'll be all right…_ Ez thought, watching them leave.

Ez continued on her way to the dorms.

* * *

**the name on the card - Ezper - is pronounced Esper, in case you were wondering. the color esper is a white/black so it fits in perfectly with her, and yes, you will **_eventually_** figure out who and what she is and why that fits, but i'm going to keep you in the dark for now. and Grey just goes great with the black/white scheme. - totally not the first thing that came to my mind when i thought of a name *cough cough* -.**

**and if anyone asked Ozpin how he came up with it, he will denied spending an entire week searching the internet for a name that started with 'Ez' but still fit with her personality. oh, and he's rich so it doesn't matter... i guess.**

**the next chapter might take a bit longer then others to write because i don't really know how to write the next bit. i have _many_ idea's for the future bits, but thats after the fall of beacon, i still have to get a proper story-line for the parts before hand... but. its the holidays so i have a lot of time to think...**

**yes, this is all i do with my life.**

**see ya later**


	11. Chapter 11

Ez moved the rook on the chess board, slaying Amber's queen. she moved the downed white piece off the board to the disbelief of her opponent. Amber's face was one of pure shock, she was losing so badly, and she doesn't even know how.

"how did you… wh-what did you… what is going on?!" she said, putting her hands on her head to try and comprehend what was happening. It didn't help.

"I'm winning and I killed your queen." Ez answers nonchalant, this was a usual occurrence.

This was the fifth game of chess they had played tonight, and Ez had won all of them without losing more then 2 pieces. Truly amazing. But then again, Amber had never played this game before in her life and Ez could read her mind for her next move… not that she's doing that…

Amber still had her shock face of disbelief. She had no idea what was going on. "but how?!" Amber tried. She was sitting up in her hospital bed supported by some pillows. The chess board was on the pull-out table in front of her, Ez was sitting on the bed at her feet, cross-legged on top of the sheets with her shoes off. They had been playing games together for the last hour while Ez's friends when out to search for another friend.

"rook's attack in straight lines, I moved it from here to here." Pointing out two places on opposite sides of the board with no pieces between them. Finally conceding that she won't understand it no matter how many times she asks, Amber sighs and moves her king to a more defensible position.

A week had passed since Amber woke up. After a full day of sleeping she woke up again and tried speaking. Surprisingly, it worked. And a few more days of constant practice later, she could speak normally again. the doctors where very proud of her and asked many questions about injures, problems, troubles and the like. On her sixth day, she, with the help of two nurses, tried to walk. That… was a little less successful. She didn't exactly fall over, but she couldn't stand up without help. But she didn't let that dampen her spirits, and so she tried again and again. and eventually, with very little progress, she could stand up with the help of a walking frame and not the nurses. Amber was happy but was determined to do better.

the doctors had told her that nothing was wrong with her legs or her nerves, in fact, they didn't even know why she couldn't walk; but that just made her try even harder. if nothing was wrong then she should be able to walk soon, right?"

Then Ez decided to visit. She came into the room holding a board game Amber had never seen before, she called it chess, and decided they needed to play at least five rounds. When asked why, Ez said "my friends are out looking for their teammate who just needs some space to cool off. And she made a new friend so she's ok, and I haven't visited you in a week so I felt as if I should." They seemed like legit arguments so Amber played some games with her. and for the passed hour, she has lost horribly.

"do you wanna play a different game?" Ez asked.

Amber smiled at her softly as if it was the most obvious question ever, "yes please." She said kindly. Hopefully she could win the next game.

Ez pulled out a set of brand-new Uno cards, a game Amber knew how to play well. "I found this in a bookshop yesterday and I was wondering if you could show me how to play." Ez asked, taking the cards out and shuffling them expertly.

"first, you need to take the instructions cards out. There the white ones." Amber said as she watched the master shuffler continue shuffling but dropping the three instructions cards out one at a time. They fell out of the deck and formed a small pile on the fold-up table. Amber picked them up and read the next step. "now give each player seven cards, face down, and put the deck in the middle of the table." Amber simplified. Ez followed the instructions and quickly gave each on them seven cards and placed the stack in the middle of the fold up table.

Amber then read the rest of the rules and explained them to Ez, who didn't need to have them read twice, and the game started with Amber. She turned the top card on the pile face up – a red eight – and placed her own green eight on top. Ez then went next with her green two. The game then slowly went on, cards being picked up and others being placed, turns taken until finally, Amber won. Ez still had three cards in her hand so it was a close game, just not close enough. The two girls played a couple more games, Ez winning one and Amber winning the other, until Ez dropped her cards onto the table and leapt to the window. Amber was startled by the sudden action but was quick to recover. Finding the younger-looking/older girl's eyes, Amber could see they were trying to find something in the far-off distance of the city.

"what are you looking for?" the surprised bed-ridden girl asked. Ez didn't respond until she had found what she was looking for, Amber couldn't see it from her bed, but her eyes were locked onto the spot, whatever it was.

"my run-away friend just got attacked at the docks. She is filled with fear; I think it's because of the white fang." After a moment, "not the reason your thinking of." She licked her lips, Amber thought the action was out of worry for a friend, but it was more out of hunger. Negative emotions_ were_ delicious… "I'm ganna go help her…" she didn't really want to do that, she wanted to watch the show, but don't tell Amber that. Without waiting for a response, Ez jumped out the window and ran to the docks, leaving an even more startled Amber in the hospital bed on the fourth story.

Ez arrived at the docks that same time Ruby did. The girl in red had run into Penny earlier that day, so both of them stood on the rooftop overlooking them.

"well hello red, isn't it passed your bedtime?" a sarcastic man with a white suit, black top hat and red feather asked. Ez didn't know him but recorded his soul into her memory for later.

Before Ruby could come up with a retort, Penny asked, "Ruby, are these people your friends?" she was serious.

The red themed girl didn't much care about the question and more about Penny's well being, "Penny, get back." She warned and got shot by the sarcastic man's cane because of it. _So that's a gun too…_ Ez thought.

Ruby was knocked back, aura half gone, yelling all the way. Deciding the man who shot her friend was evil, Penny activated her backpack. It opened up, reveling a single blade that multiplies into six. They hovered above her, she in complete control of their every movement. Ez could see that her Aura and soul spread over the swords, making then literally an extension of herself.

"Penny, wait! Stop!" ruby tried in vain, still believing Penny was a delicate, innocent girl. She was shaking her arms for exaggeration, completely oblivious to the spinning swords coming out of her friends' backpack.

Penny gave her a thumbs up and smiled cheerfully, "don't worry, ruby. I'm combat ready!" she leapt off the rooftop down to the battle ground below, her weapons broke her fall by acting as wings. waving her left arm in a wide circle, two blades left her side to take down four White Fang members, she did the same with her right arm, taking down three more. She calls her extended blades back with a hand gesture and formed a tight, rapidly-spinning, blade wheel as a shield against the bullets being fired at her. she throws the blades at her assailants, who fall beneath then quickly.

Seeing he was outmatched, the man in white waved his hand to get the attention of the three bullheads circling the docks. One came down to pick him, and the White Fang members up, covered by the other two who aimed all their fire on Penny. Ez watched silently, from a different rooftop from Ruby, as Penny shoots two swords into the wall far behind her and spring herself backwards, effortlessly grounding herself. Other then the two swords behind, the blades spun in front of her. green energy starts charging up. When it was a reasonable sized ball, Penny pulled back her arms and shot them forward in a punching motion. A bright green laser shot from the green ball to one the bullheads, slicing it in half. The two halves of the bullhead fell off to the sides, in the direction of the sea. Penny shoots another laser off at the other bullhead targeting her, splitting it in half as well. Two down, one to go.

Sun comments on the amazing huntress-in-training's skills. "whoa! Wish I could do that!" he says to Blake in awe.

Penny had no more green energy left for a third laser, so she unhooked the swords attached to the wall and started sprinting forward to knock the last bullhead out of the sky. The bullhead in question had already picked up its passengers and was headed out to sea, Penny could stop it.

If it weren't for an extremely lucky, last-ditch shot from one of the fallen White Fang members.

The horned female Faunus had been laying on the ground unconscious from an attack from Blake ages ago. She had awoken and was blaming the humans for this ambush, so she did what she thought was reasonable. She had risen her gun to shoot the only human in her sights, Penny. As soon as the shot was fired, she fell back into unconsciousness, unable to see if it hit or not. The lucky bullet shot towards the unsuspecting robot and hit her directly in her head. It would have been a kill shot except for Penny's Aura, which was always active as she needs it to function and use her swords. Her aura shield blocked the kill shot, but it did knock the girl over, which gave the escaping bullhead enough time to flee the area.

When Penny got up again, she put her hand above her eyes to see further and said. "oops." She accidentally let a ship escape. And now she has a scratch going from her ear to her forehead. Her aura protected her from most of the force, but it didn't stop the bullet completely.

Ruby stood up and watched as the carnage of ships happened, as the bullhead fell over her head, as her friend got shot in the head and as the last bullhead ran free. "Penny! Are you alright?!" she yelled, climbing down to the docks, then noticing Blake she stopped mid sprint, having to choose between the two to check on. Ez jumped off from her hiding place and walked over to Penny, they talked. This decided it for Ruby, she went to Blake. "Blake are you ok? Where have you been?!" she asked, very worried for her teammate.

Ez doesn't pay mind to the conversation ten meters away and instead warned Penny she has a scratch on her face and its blindingly obvious that she's not human. The girl quickly covers it with her hand and waits patiently for the police to arrive. She get's in the first car and is driven away to her house. No one at the docks even noticed she was gone until later.

Finally calming down, Ruby left Blake alone and started taking stock of everything else going on. Ez was sitting on a crate next to Sun, cops were everywhere, the White Fang members that were left behind were tied up and being taken away in police cars, and Weiss and yang appeared from the top of the docks… ohmygod!weissandyangarehere! her thoughts spiraled upwards. She then charged over to then and asked excitedly. "why did you two leave me and Penny earlier!?" she accused.

Yang put her hands up in defense. "Weiss saw a butterfly, so I had to follow her?" she made up.

Weiss looked at her angry, "Hey!" she retorted.

Ruby nodded, accepting this as normal. She moved on when Blake slowly walked up to them. "Weiss, I want you to know I'm no longer associated with the White Fang. Back when I was-" her preplanned speech was interrupted.

"stop." Weiss said. "do you have any idea how long we've been searching for you?" she asked rhetorically, "two days. That means I've had _two_ _day_s to think about this. And I've decided…I don't care!" she practically yelled.

No one had a response for a bit until Blake spoke up, happy but confused. "you don't care?" she asked, making sure she heard correctly.

Weiss points at Blake, "you said your not one of them anymore, right?" she clarified.

Blake took a deep breath, this will need some explaining, "no, I haven't since I was younger I-" she was cut off by Weiss yet again.

"bla bla bla, don't care." Each 'bla' followed by a hand wave, "all I want to know is next time something big happens like this, you'll come to us, your teammates. Not some…" she glanced in the general direction of the monkey Faunus from the boat. "someone else." She amended.

Blake was so happy her previously racist teammate could be turned and accept her as herself. Ruby and Yang gave her a grin when she looked their way, she wiped a tear of joy.

Everything is calm and serious, but at the same time refreshing and joyful. It was a wonderful moment… until Ruby screamed. "ALL Right! Team RWBY Is Back Together!" she jumped up into the air, when she landed, she realized someone was missing, "hey, where's Penny?" she asked.

Ez answered the question, "she went home, her dad called. Something about eating dinner when its hot or whatever." She lied dismissively. In actual fact, Penny was being told off by her driver on her way to the apartment she's staying at to get some repairs to her face and new scratch fixed up.

The gang accepted this without further question, cheerfully heading back to beacon.

* * *

Ozpin's scroll beeped with a message. Slowly he picked it up and read it.

QROW: QUEEN HAS PAWNS

If not for the number he sent it on and the keywords he used, Ozpin would have discarded it for his friends drunken texting. He does that sometimes, random messages at plot convenient times that sort of guide, but also ruin the plot. For instance: he has been sent on a very dangerous missing, not a word from him in days. Then suddenly 'DON'T GO TO BORDENHIGH. THE BEER IS SHIT' Qrow could be a real dumbass sometimes.

In this case, the meaning is obvious. If you didn't know Salem then it would be a weird reference to chess, but if you did, then it's obvious that Salem has underlings now. And dangerous ones at that. Not good.

But now Ez was awake. Maybe they have a hope. He sent back to Qrow on the same line: THE PLAYER IS AWAKE. He had told Qrow about Ez once, hopefully he remembers. In their shitty chess references, maybe he'll get it. But at the same time, it is Qrow, so Ozpin wasn't expecting his too.

* * *

Team RWBY is sitting in their dorm room, Ez is on the window sill. They were all staring at am uncomfortable Blake.

She had her bow off, so she didn't feel quite safe, not with the possibility of someone coming into their room at any given moment. Ruby was staring at her with glowing eyes, mostly at her ears, Yang looked happy, and Weiss had a soft smile of acceptance on her face. Ez was reading a book she found on Blake's shelves.

"you should show them your tail too." Called Ez from the other side of the room. now that it was out, Blake couldn't hide it.

"I want to know how you found out about my tail." Blake said skeptically, she wriggled on the spot for a bit and a tail came out from her backside. It was a black, like her ears, with a white tip. It flicked around the room. Ruby took a breath in surprise; it was so cute. Yang gasped in shock, she thought her partner only had ears, how wrong she was. And Weiss's eyes narrowed.

"I thought we were going to be truthful from this point onward." Weiss said, disappointed that her teammate still didn't trust them enough to come clean without being prompted.

Blake sighed; her tail drooped. "I hide my tail from the Faunus as well." She said

Now yang was confused, "why? I would think it would be ok to show the Faunus you _Faunus_ heritage. Why hide it?" she asked.

Blake looked her in the eyes, "much like how the Faunus get mistreated by the humans, Faunus with two traits get mistreated by the normal Faunus. It's because they have a stronger bloodline or something." She explained. Her answered got a negative sound from Ez.

Blake put her hand on her hips and pouted at her. "well if you know, care to enlighten us?" she said sarcastically. She did want to know why she was different from everyone else.

Ez closed her book and looked at them, the other three team members were silently watching the two. "a very long time ago, stuff happened. The Faunus existed before the humans. Everything was great and all, not as many wars as now. Back then, lots of people had lots of Faunus traits, one person could easily have a tail, second set of ears, split pupils, claws, etc." waving her hand. "but then a group of Faunus pissed off a very powerful person and their traits were taken away from them. Thus, the humans came into existence. The humans didn't like the idea and so they brought more Faunus alone with them to fight the very powerful person. in those times, humans were the weak ones and only a faunas could fight. Those Faunus had their traits taken away as well, So sad. That's how there are more humans then Faunus now." She recounted. "the very powerful person then went and took away all the Faunus traits from everyone, only giving it back to those it felt were worthy. So basically, the people who didn't fight, tried to stop the ones that did and the one who had nothing to do with it. Depending on what they had done, depends how many traits they had. If they didn't fight but _didn't_ try to stop the one-sided war, they get one trait. If they tried to stop others from fighting, they get two traits. And if they literally had nothing to do with it, as in they were a hermit on the other side of the world and had no idea what was going on, they got to keep all their traits." She explained. "over time, this was forgotten. But the Faunus traits were passed down through the generations. Blake, does either of your parents have two Faunus traits?" she asked.

Blake was startled at first, "uh um, both of then actually. My mum has a tail and ears like me, and my dad has split pupils and claws." She said.

The three humans in the room were questioning themselves, blaming themselves for the faults of their ancestors.

Weiss was the first to speak, "I didn't know it was such a bad thing to be human." She said, staring at her hands.

Yang spoke next, "make you wish your Faunus… not that I would mind."

Ruby was waving her hands around, trying to make herself and the other two feel better. "its not that big of a deal, it happened ages ago, right Ez?" she asked.

The immortal gave them a wide grin, "yep. It happened a super long time ago, way before this planet existed. Don't think too much about it." She said, dismissing questions.

The two depressed girls recovered slightly. Weiss looks at Ez, "can you tell us more about this war?" she asked, always ready to suck up more information.

Ez waved her hand dismissively, "pffft, nah. Can't be bothered." She said. Ez stood up from her place on the window sill and swung across to her room next door. It might be more correct in saying jumped or climbed but swung is adequate.

The four girls were left on their own, as usual. "welp, that's a thing now." Yang said cheerfully.

The girls talked for a while longer until finally going to bed and actually sleeping.

* * *

"Students from the Atlas will be arriving today!" An over exited Ruby called out. This was a good excuse as any to wake everyone she knows up. Never mind the fact that they won't be arriving until the afternoon and that it's a weekend.

As always, Ez was the first one up and ready, closely followed by Nora, Juane, Pyrrha and ruby. Yang and Weiss still had to do their hair and Blake just wasn't a morning person. Ren came out of the room shortly after the early risers.

"why did you have to be a morning person?" Weiss asked rhetorically to Ruby as she walked out of the room with yang.

"because she grew up with my dad." The yellow themed teen said. Then happier, "who's ready for breakfast!" she called.

A chorus of agreement ran through the students. They all headed out in the directing of the cafeteria. Ez played on her scroll as everyone else ate.

"who do you think is coming?" Asked Nora, ever the optimist.

Weiss, eating her meal with the utmost grace, answered, "my sister for one, as well as two teams competing in the tournament from each kingdom. as Vale is hosting this year, we can enter three teams." Ever the informant.

"while your all waiting for those guys to show up, I'm ganna make a pillow fort with Penny now that she can come onto school grounds." Ez said, adding her two bits of conversation.

Nora smiled before chucking another grape at Yang, who caught it in her mouth. She threw one back. "you _have_ to invite me!" she said with an evil grin, thinking up the best way to throw a pillow.

Ez rolled her eyes at Nora's antics, "your all invited, I just promised Penny ill make it with her." she said. The immortal got up to leave. "see ya later." She said with a small wave before exiting the cafeteria.

Ez walked down the hallway to the dorms belonging to the Atlas students, Penny had been staying there for the last two days. Grabbing out her phone to check the time and the room number Penny sent her, she ran into someone.

Odd. That usually doesn't happen. She was very good at avoiding people in hallways and corridors, why did she run into one now? She wondered.

"sorry." Her assailant said calmly. "I didn't see you there." Ez peaked into her mind, she was lying. The green haired girl on purposely ran into her to gather information or something from the students of beacon. Ez looked up from her scroll at the green haired student. She was wearing the haven uniform, had red eyes and shoulder length green hair with two longer strands behind her. Ez discovered her name was Emerald. _It suits her…_ she thought to herself. "do you know where the Haven students are staying, I got turned around." Emerald continued, tilting her head in fake kindness. It was obviously a lie, well, to anyone who could read minds. She was radiating hatred and annoyance, she didn't care about any of this or this school, she only cared about her mother-figure… a, um, Cinder fall… if Ez is hearing correctly. _Hhmmmmmm_… she thought. Then she does a double take. _Wait! Isn't this one of the people I drew from Amber's mind?!_ She thought, not that she outwardly showed it.

"the Haven students are staying in a completely different set of dorms; I could show you if you want. Do you know your room number?" Ez said laced with fake kindness even the best of spies couldn't detect. The dark student smiled again; Fake written all over it. Her mind was practically yelling she knew the way but wanted information from Ez. She was insulting her and laughing internally that Ez didn't even relies she hated her guts, this school, everything in existence and, _hay, she reminds me of Salem!_ All the _goodie two shoes_ in this horrid place and how Cinder, a guy called mercury and herself are plotting to destroy this school with Roman Torchwick, that jerk from the docks, and Cinders master, Salem.

Ez blinked in silence…_ well, thank you for telling me your entire plan, you oblivious little brat._ Ez thought silently to herself, god it was funny when things like this happened.

"my room number's 834." Emerald supplied. "oh, I completely forgot to introduce myself!" she said cheerfully, in her mind she was screaming at the evilness of common courtesy and how time wasting it was and, oh so much about the ways she wants to kill this person in front of her. "my name is Emerald, what's yours?" she asked, not too interested in the answer.

Ez fake smiled back, ignoring all the extra rude and annoying comments from her mind. "I'm Ez, it's nice to meet you." She lied, she didn't quite like this girl…for obvious reasons. "your dorm is this way." She said, pointing down the hallway in the direction Emerald came from. The haven dorms were right next to the Atlas dorms, so she won't be deviating too far from her intended goal.

They strolled for a minute or two before Emerald spoke up, "so what's it like here in Vale?" she asked innocently. And the interrogation starts.

Well, Ez was going to be as useless as possible. "um, good." She responded, supported with a weak smile. Emerald didn't push it.

"my teammates are all introverted weirdos, but I love hearing and meeting new people… so, I was wondering if you could tell me about yours?" Emerald blatantly lied, meeting new people was the worst torture you could put her through, but she needed the info for Cinder so she will do it.

Ez tapped her cheek, "well, my team leader is my older twin, she looks exactly like me but has a completely different personality to me. where I'm nice and friendly, she will happily destroy everything her enemies love just for some payback. Her name's Ze." She made up. She was going to come up with the tallest tales and see if Emerald will fall for it. "my partner is my closest friend, her name's Ether. Don't make her mad, she can imbue anything to make them rock hard. This is good advice if you ever fight against her in a pillow fight, avoid her projectiles at all costs. They. Will. Hurt." Now this was just giving a name to one of her abilities, no originality here at all. "and the last member of our team is the oldest. She looks 17 but that's deceiving, in actual fact, she is over thousands of years old. Don't ask me how, I don't get it either, but apparently she can reincarnate or something." _Tooooootaly not quoting Oz_…*whistle whistle* she thought internally, not letting any of it show.

Emerald was taking all this information in at record speeds, deciding what was important and what was not. _Oh my god. She actually believes it._ Ez internally comments, thinking back on what she said, unless you know her, what she said could, sort of, be believable… except maybe the reincarnating bit. but that's specifics. Who cares about them?

The two walked into their dorm building. "that's so interesting." Emerald responds with only a few seconds delay. It sounded genuine for a change.

"I know right?" Ez asked rhetorically, laughing her mind off inside, but not letting it show. "so what's your team like?" she asked in turn.

Emerald really didn't want to tell Ez about her team members, its not the sort of information you randomly give out to people – especially not people like Ez who can't keep a secret to themselves. Honestly, who tells a random stranger their teammate can reincarnate? Seems dumb. But, thanks to 'common courtesy' it was expected of her to respond. "my team leader's name is Cinder, she's great. My partners name is Mercury, I hate his guts. And the last member is Neo, she's mute so I don't know much about her." it wasn't a complete lie, but it didn't tell her _anything_ about them.

Little did Emerald know that Ez could read her mind, and that she had already found out _everything_ she possibly could…not that she's going to tell Ozpin. That would be no fun.

Ez glanced to the room numbers plates they were passing. "I think your rooms upstairs." she lead Emerald up the stairs and down the next hallway. She stopped at the room labeled 834. "here it is." She said.

"thank you." Emerald said with fake kindness. "see you later?" she asked.

Ez nodded politely, she was much better at this then Emerald, "sure." She said kindly. Lying was her one of her better skills, even if she doesn't like doing it. "oh!" Ez really wasn't done playing with Emerald. Might as well make the best of it for now. "tell Salem 'Ez says hi'." She said before skipping down the hall and jumping out a window next to the staircase.

The two girls parted ways. One laughing quietly, the other too shocked to respond.

* * *

Penny looked up from her book when she heard the knock at the door. Before she could answer, Ez came charging though the door, giggling quietly to herself. The door hinges protested with the force used to 'softly' slam the door against the wall. They protested more with the sudden stop thanks to Ez grabbing the door handle before it could crash into the wall. A completely acceptable entrance, in Penny's opinion.

"hello." Ez said with a soft smile that slowly vanished after she regained her composer.

"salutations!" Penny replied cheerfully.

Ez tilted her head in curiosity after spotting the book cover of the novel Penny was reading. It was one of those children books with lots of pictures about animals. the page she was currently on was about a horse. "what's that?"

Penny looked down at her book, "my father gave it too me, said it will be helpful in my learning, but so far i haven't found anything i didn't already know." she said.

do you want to build a pillow fort with me now?" the childish immortal changed the subject, bored of the book already.

Penny's eyes grew out of focus as she sorted through her recent history. "yes!" she said, concluding that today was the date they settled on for the fort building.

The two girls left the room, Penny leaving the book on the bed and Ez leaving nothing behind. Like always.

* * *

Emerald stared down the hallway the Beacon student skipped calmly down. It was empty and had been for a few minutes now. The green haired girl was slowly coming to conclusions left and right about the mysterious girl she had talked too. One of them being – she was an ally sent to help us without our knowledge. – it was likely, after all, it _is _Salem they were under. She was very renowned for only telling people what they absolutely needed to know; nothing more. Nothing less. With the other conclusion being – she is an enemy that needs to be dealt with, she knew too much already. If this got out to Ozpin or the school, they could be in some deep shit.

She turned around and opened the door slowly.

Mercury looked up from his scroll he was playing on, his character just died…again. "wow! What with that face!" he teased. He and Emerald weren't on the best of ground with each other, very easily getting into verbal fights that sometimes lead to actual fights.

Cinder looked up from her own scroll with that announcement, she was used to the bickering two and would normally ignore it, but Emerald had just been out on reconnaissance and information hunting, so whatever face Emerald was pulling might be worth her time. In her inspection, Cinder recognized _exactly _what expression it was and _exactly_ what Emerald was feeling; fear with a side note of worry and curiosity. Cinder put the scroll she had been using to plan her attack on beacon tower down. "what happened." She said sternly. It wasn't a question.

Emerald looked at them both before answering. "someone knows about us." She said simply. Cinder took a sharp intake of breath while Mercury stole a creepy grin from some old dude; she is so dead.

"what did you do." Cinder said harshly, but still calm. It was more terrifying to Emerald because it was accompanied by a death glare, ones only spared for the people who had truly wronged her.

Emerald was quick to defend herself. "n-nothing I swear! I was lying to the kid the whole time! I have no Idea how she knew! but one things certain; she knew before hand, not through me!" she was holding her hands in a rushed defense in front of her face, she knew it would do nothing against Cinder's attacks, but it was better then nothing.

"hmmm…" Cinder hummed. It was obvious Emerald wasn't lying, she was too loving of Cinder to do that, but this did cause some problems for them going forward. "did you find out her name?" she asked.

Emerald lower her hand to her side, she wasn't in any more danger, for now. "y-yes." She stammered, "it was Ez. She didn't give me a last name and I didn't ask, but her name is Ez."

Cinder froze, she would have dropped her scroll if she was holding it.

Mercury watched the two with mild boredom and light curiosity. "you know her?" he asked the statue who used to be Cinder. The raven-haired woman took a breath in and consolidated herself before answering.

"only through stories." She started, causing Mercury to raise an eyebrow. "it is said that a creature in the shape of a girl named only Ez is capable of many impossible things beyond comprehension. The stories say she is an immortal being who can and will do anything and everything. With only one condition; it must entertain her." Cinder looked her apprentices in the eye one at a time, "if that girl you met is truly Ez, then she will either be a asset or our downfall." Her face hardened as she looked Emerald in the eye again. "be warned; she can and will be able to read your mind. As far as I know, there is no defense against it. Try not to get too close to her as she may discover all our plans and tell dear old Ozpin."

The two _children_ were silent for a moment, Mercury was the first to speak as he was less affected by their leader's death stare, "how bad can she be, exactly?"

Cinder picked her scroll off the table and continued working on her heist plans for later, "she could easily destroy all of remnant with a click of her fingers if she got bored of it, I even believe she has a couple of times." She added, "the first story I heard about her was one of creation. Ez is said to be the first conscious thing in the universe, with the side bonus of power over everything. The world is literally her playground. Whatever she wishes to happen _will_ happen. No. matter. What." She said sternly. "the second story was one of destruction. She will happily destroy anything in her path to get what she wants. And the last one was a warning. Do _not_ get on her bad side." She said without waver.

After a few minutes of silence, Cinder hummed and reassured the two. "but that's only if our little _friend_ here is the same Ez." Mercury went back to his scroll and started the next round with a bit more hesitation. this was a lot to think about.

Emerald grabbed her own scroll and started working on her assignment given by the cruel teacher here named Glynda Goodwitch. Keeping up appearances is hard when you don't put in the effort. this should be a good enough distraction from the weird girl she met earlier.

* * *

walking to her dorm room, Ez started laughing like a maniac. this is becoming funnier by the second.

Definitely, no way she was telling Oz.

Penny just looked at her, wondering if this was a human custom or something. soon enough, she was copying the immortal and the two not-humans were both laughing like maniacs in the middle of a school hallway.

* * *

a shiver ran down Ozpin spine. "something is definitely not right." he mumbled to himself.

"what did you say?" Glynda asked as she looked at the drawings that came from Amber, printing them to memory.

Ozpin shook his head slowly, "it's nothing." he said, looking out one of the many windows that scattered the room.

* * *

**hi guys! i hope you liked it. sorry for the long wait, I've been busy. (mostly writing other fanfics i haven't posted yet) and expect a slightly longer wait for the next chapter. also, to any who ask, the food fight did happen, i just didn't want to write it because i hate copying from the wiki. (its boring). if you want to watch the food fight just search it up.**

**welp, see ya next chapter!**

**FAVORITE! FOLLOW! REVIEW!**


	12. Chapter 12

"YOU WILL NEVER TAKE OUR FLAG! AHHHHG!" Ruby yelled as she held one of the smaller pillows in her hand behind her, ready to throw it at a moments notice. Seeing an opening in the enemy's defenses, she throws. The small pillow landed solidly if not lightly on Ren's face. He twitched just a little before grabbing two pillows in purple cases and swinging them around repetitively and charged quickly across the arena usually used for class. He locked pillows with yang, who had two attached to her arms somehow.

"AHAHAHAHAAAA! IM QUEEN OF THE CASTLE! IM QUEEN OF THE CASTLE!" yelled Nora with her hands on her hips, literally standing on the second floor of a castle of pillows; not a mound with a flag on top, but a literal. Castle. Of. Pillows. Don't even ask how penny and Ez had managed to create the two monstrous forts for the pillow fight, they will never spill their secrets…

Juane and Weiss picked up a pillow each and chucked it across the room, completely intent on smashing the other team down to the dust and claiming their flag as their own. RWBY had a red flag sitting at the top of their castle of pillows while JNPR had a bright pink one. They had been supplied by Nora and Ruby who conveniently had one laying around, each. The objective of the war; obliterate the other team and steal their flag, in style.

"JUSTICE WILL BE SWIFT! JUSTICE WILL BE PAINFUL! IT WILL BE…FLUFFY!" Ruby yelled, pausing for dramatic effect as she chucked another pillow across the room with all her might. Her entire team shouted with her and chucked their own pillows, denting the surprisingly strong fort slightly. The enemies replied with their own battle cry and a round of pillows.

Pyrrha's pillow hit yang directly in the face, she paused for a second and considered apologizing, but decided against it. Everything is fair in a war. Her hesitation gave Blake enough time to set up a pillow catapult with her weapon's ribbon. Stretching across the room while being pulled back by one of Weiss's glyphs and loaded by Ruby; it was a sight to behold… before the black gravitational glyph was released, sending the soft rockets across the room and into the faces of the opposing team.

Juane tripped on a stray pillow in the middle of the field between the two forts as yang charged up, passing the downed enemy in exchange for punching Nora, who blocked with a pink pillow. The girls exchanged a few blows before Nora was hit with a speed jab to the gut. She wasn't hurt thanks to her aura but she was still sent hurtling backwards due to the force. Pyrrha stepped in to deal with her, wielding her own crimson pillow ready to strike with her other hand in a pillowcase, acting as a shield. It worked, surprisingly enough, and yang's punches were blocked by the soft shield, leaving Pyrrha an opening to attack from underneath.

As they were using pillows, stabbing would be completely useless, so, for all those that use bladed weapons, they were all using strikes. An upward strike from Pyrrha sent yang up and back to her fort, leaving a hole in their wall but doing nothing to the integrity of the building Yang attaches two new pillows to her forearms and sprints back in.

Ren grabs two pillows and starts spinning them to block an attack from Weiss, the glyph user had jumped above them with a large collection of ammo and was preparing to fire them at alarmingly fast speeds. The purple and green boy knocked three out of there intended paths and deflected another two, He had to outright block only one. The force from the pillows was astounding and had taken his Aura down by 14%.

Juane jumped up and grabbed the pillow next to him and threw it at Ruby, who waved her arms around valiantly in an attempt to block. It failed horribly and she was hit. Luckily, Juane's pillows were thrown lightly, probably due to him only just learning proper fighting skills from Pyrrha for only a month now, so ruby wasn't hurt at all and could easily retaliate with her own lightly thrown pillow, due to her only being able to use a scythe and anything else just being a useless hunk of metal in her hands…until she decides to take it apart for bit to make her projects with. Then it becomes a mystery…

Nora landed near her flagpole.

She had a brilliant idea.

No.

A fantastic idea!

Nora wrapped her hands around the flagpole and swiftly pulled it from its resting place. She then stabbed two pillow with it, impaling them and ripping a hole in the middle of both pink pillows. She raised her weapon up and smiled crazily. Improvised pillow-hammer complete.

Blake swiped up another five pillows and loaded them into a smaller version of the ribbon cannon, she would use it until it fell. Without the help of Weiss's glyphs, she pulled her loaded ribbon back, surprisingly easily to anyone who didn't know her, and shot a round out. The pillows expertly aimed to hit Pyrrha and Ren, who were conveniently next to each other. She grabbed another five more pillows, ready to fire again.

Pyrrha dodged the projectiles from the enemy fort and returned her attention to yang, her opponent. She ducked one of Yang's many cushioned blows and countered with a swing on her own pillow. Yang blocked the attack, using her semblance to absorb the power without being throw to the other side of the classroom. The blonde then released her pent-up energy and Attacked Pyrrha harder and faster. Sadly, the red head could easily adapt to the change in pace and was dodging and blocking almost every attack, countering with her own every couple of strikes.

Until Nora jumped in.

Ren jumped to the side as Weiss shot yet another round of projectiles at him. He threw his own two back at her while picking up two more to defend with. Just in time, as the heiress dodged the pillows and retaliated with her own attack. This time, she made the pillows spin before she threw them, making then twice as deadly and twice as fast. Ren had a harder time getting out of the way of them. it also didn't help that Blake was now aiming at him as Pyrrha and Yang moved around too much to get a perfect shot on, Nora was back at their base and Juane was in a stalemate with Ruby. So, Ren was avoiding pillows from two separate directions, and of which, he didn't know the exact place Blake was firing from.

The pillows he couldn't dodge, he threw his own pillows at, so they lose momentum and fall before hitting him. Any he can't dodge, which aren't that many, and he can't block with his own pillows, hits him. Whether it be a grazing hit or a substantial one its slowly, painfully slowly, eating away at his Aura.

**CRASH! BANG!**

The pillow rain ended momentarily as his two attackers paused to see what caused the loud noise. Already know _exactly_ what made the noise, due to him living with her for the last 10 years, he didn't have to glance over to get a reading on the other battles. To him, it was simple really, Nora found a hammer. Ren jumped forward and tripped the heiress over before throwing her into team RWBY's own fort.

The force of the throw sent Weiss's aura into the red, as well as knocking her unconscious. Ruby looked over to her fallen comrade, momentarily distracted from her fight with Juane…if it could be called that…

"WEISS NOO!" the young reaper yelled. Then she glanced over to where the deadly distraction came form and saw Nora with her flag-hammer and Pyrrha smiling at each other. Not a single yang in sight. "YANG! WHERE ARE YOU!" she yelled again, her team was being beaten by the second.

Ruby refocused as a pillow hit her in the head, thanks to Juane. She could see out of the corner of her eye; Nora was smiling at her. it was creepy and terrifying. She almost didn't notice the pink maniac suddenly disappearing from her spot and reappearing right in front of her. but, luckily, she did. So she used her speed semblance to get away from the pink teen with a weapon. She dodged back as Nora lead with an upward strike. connecting with nothing, Nora jumped forward and swung down with the already raised 'soft'-hammer. Ruby leaped backwards, wishing she had her scythe.

Then a thought hit her.

Ruby turned her back to her opponent and, using her semblance at full throttle, got away from the dangerous enemy for the safety of her base. Blake watched her pass with mild curiosity.

"cover for me!" ruby yelled, running past the cat Faunus. She ran to her flag and pulled it out, following in Nora's example. Ruby stabbed a single pillow with her flagpole, unlike Nora, she didn't stab it in the middle, she stabbed it through the end. Now she has a much smaller, lighter scythe then usual. But a scythe of sorts, nonetheless.

Blake turned back to the team, barely able to react as Pyrrha's head popped up over the wall she had just climbed up. Blake let go of her already loaded ribbon-cannon and smashed two pillows into the red-head, almost knocking her off the wall but she managed to hold on with one hand. Sadly, Blake rushed forward and kicked the pillow Pyrrha was desperately trying to hold onto off the wall and down into the depths below. the Amazon champion rolled out of her fall and raised her shield up for Nora to jump on. Juane was cheering for moral support and Ren was running forward for backup.

Blake undid her ribbon-cannon and threw the weighted end at Ren. He couldn't react to the unexpected attack and was tied up in a split second. Blake then used all her might to pull Ren up there as fast as she could. Surprisingly, Ren weighed almost nothing and was quickly up the wall in a flash. Blake stood him up and used him as a human shield against Nora, who was spinning to gain velocity without her rocket launcher. Ren didn't even seem distressed about his current position.

Nora landed. Using all her might into her swing she shot it down as fast as she could.

Then she noticed Ren.

Time seemed to freeze as her muscles tensed up and she stomped her foot in the ground to stop her lighter than normal weapon.

Time returned as her make-shift hammer crashed into the pillow platform they were standing on, leaving a decent sized hole to their left.

"few." Nora gasped as she inspected her totally-not-boyfriend. "almost hit you again…" she said, before raising her weapon, grabbing the still tied up Ren, and chucking him off the building. Blake didn't unwrap him.

Juane stood underneath the falling teen, ready to catch him. He failed horribly and just ended up breaking his fall… with his back. His aura traveled into the orange.

Ruby hefted her pillow-scythe and charged back into the fight, trying for a sneak attack on Pyrrha. It didn't work out as planned as Pyrrha used her semblance to move the pillow-scythe a tiny bit, so it didn't hit her neck. Ruby spun around, not loosing her precious momentum and swung from behind, closely followed by and upper slash and a lower slash. Pyrrha managed to barely block the speed-of-sound attacks but couldn't do anything about the follow up swing to her midsection. The momentum traveled through the speedy teen to the shielded teen, sending her flying backwards into a wall. Out of the arena and out of the fight.

Not that they had set up boundaries beforehand, her aura was just in the red and so, she wasn't fit to fight anymore.

Yang, who had been previously stuck in a wall, finally got herself out of it. And she didn't even have to uses her charged semblance to do so. She joined back in the fight, standing along-side Blake, watching her sister knock the champion out of the playing field with a speedy block to the ribs.

"I taught her that." Yang said, earning a disbelieving glare from Blake. She just shrugged and charged at Nora. Her eyes turned red as she activated her semblance, ready to punch the shit out of the hammer-wielding-badass-student. Of cause, she let out a battle cry, informing her opponent of her arrival. Yang could never stand a sneak attack. Nora spun on her heal to face her and raised the hammers head to block. The two pillows on the end were shredded away and the flagpole bent a substantial amount from the shock wave of the blow. It was no longer fit for any sort of battle. So, like any normal teen, she fought the brawler with her fists.

As expected, Nora was taken out within twenty punches, rocketing to join Pyrrha on the wall. Yang ran over to Ruby and Blake. Their opponents – jaune and Ren.

Ren, finally free of the evil ribbon, thanks to Juane's efforts, grabbed two pillows and threw them at their three enemies. It did little damage as Yang punched hers and Ruby blocked hers with the shaft of her pillow-scythe.

"BUMBLEBEE!" Ruby shouted unexpectedly.

Yang turned around and sprinted in the opposite direction of their Enemies, outstretching her right hand, complete faith in her partner. As if on cue, the black ribbon appeared in Yang's hand. Closing her fist around it, yang turned right and pulled the ribbon taunt. Blake leaned back, swinging Yang in a giant semicircle. Ren and Juane didn't have enough time to react as Yang swung super-fast to their position. The two boys were hit on their side, joining Pyrrha and Nora in the wall.

Ruby sprinted over to Nora's discarded pillow-hammer and raised it above her head, whooping in joy at their win. She then ran over to Weiss, still dazed from Ren's attack, and helped her up. She seemed ok.

"Seeeeee, I told you it would be worth watching." Ez said to Amber. The two, along with Penny, had been sitting in foldable chairs on the sidelines.

Penny nodded, "it was very interesting, but I believe they could improve a substantial amount if they worked on their weaknesses." She scanned the two teams for any lasting injuries. finding none, she nodded again and smiled.

Amber sighed, "Ok. Ok, it was rather interesting to see how the next generation is coming along." she relented. Earlier, she had put up a lot of fuss about not wanting to see a boring old pillow fight but gave up when Ez dragged her onto a wheelchair, which was surprisingly comfy, and pushed her to the arena. She pouted the entire way, throwing an annoyed glance backwards every now and again. Ez just smiled, ignoring all the rude comments Amber was too kind to voice out loud.

In the wall, team JNPR was slowly gathering themselves together and escaping the craters they were stuck to. Now that the battle was over, RWBY was helping them out. They all, while talking loudly like the students they are, crowded around their audience of three.

"so, how did we do?" ruby asked, too exited to make the question sound serious.

Before the battle begun, RWBY and JNPR had asked if their audience members could grade them and give them some pointers to improve for the Vytal tournament in a two months. Ruby, Nora, Weiss and Juane had been especially excited about improving themselves. The rest where also as happy, but they would show it less.

"I'm going to let Penny take this one." Ez designated.

All eyes turned to her, she didn't even blink. This was definitely in her calculations. "who should I start with?" she asked with a smile on her face.

"ah, forgive me, but what could we learn from you?" Weiss worded carefully, trying not to offend the grey and green themed girl who had become quick friends with their resident immortal.

Ez smiled kindly at her, but her eyes didn't share the emotion. "she was paying more attention to the fight then I was. Sure, I could tell you stuff to improve but I can't be bothered. So, Penny can do it." She said before leaning back in her chair and watching the group evidently. Not that they noticed, it looked like she was taking a nap. A drop of sweat ran down half the groups heads at her laziness.

"do me first!" Ruby said, holding up her hand like a primary school student.

Penny nodded, "you need to work of combat without your weapon. Easiest way I could think of, fight Yang in hand-to-hand combat until you can land a solid hit. Then fight her until you win." She turned to Yang, "you need to fight smarter. Stop relying on your semblance. Its good in a tight spot but it drains your aura too much. What if your opponent wasn't taken out in your semblance attack, you would be left defenseless." She stated. Yang opened her mouth to protest but held it back. "a good way to practice is to fight Ruby, she is a speed fighter so you'll have a hard time hitting her, it will make you think more." Penny smiled, this was fun, she should teach people more often.

"Weiss," the heiress stood straighter now that she was being addressed. "you need to work on your stamina. Your control and precision are almost perfect, but they will be completely useless if your exhausted." Weiss nodded; she had noticed it too. "I think it would be best if you trained with Nora. When you can keep up with her, then you can say you have a lot of stamina." Nora perked up at the mention of her thunder-thighs training. She had shown the others once before, they didn't seem to enjoy the warm up much. But now she has a proper student who can't run away. This will be so much fun… "Nora, your rather even when it comes to battle. So, my advice is to make some more techniques and different skills you wouldn't normally use against different opponents in different environments. Weiss can help with this through her glyphs." Penny watched as Nora's grin turned to a full-on fanatical smile.

"Ren and Blake." Penny said, "your both stealth/speed/support fighters, and your really good at it. So, for you two, try sneaking up on each other with bright colored clothes on or music playing loudly from your scrolls. When you can do that, try and sneak up on Ez." She said.

"hey!" Ez said at the mention of her name.

"if you can manage that, without any handicaps, then no one with ever be able to find you when you don't want to be found. Also, you might want to work on your power output. Your both strong, but in comparison to Yang's punches or Nora's hammer, your blows deal a lot less damage. to improve that, just fight one of the two more often. Preferably the one not on your team." Penny said, it would be wise to fight a large variety of people then just a select few.

"Juane," penny started. "you need to work on everything." She stated as if it was common knowledge. "without your sword, you're a sitting duck. You need to learn to fight with and without it, and with more then just one opponent." She glanced at Pyrrha. Their fighting techniques were surprisingly similar. "for you, just spare with everyone one at a time. Eventually you'll get better, you have potential." She said like a wise old man in his twenties.

"and finally, Pyrrha." Penny said while staring at her. "your like Nora, your really evened out as far as strengths go. But you need to work of surprise attacks and dodging. You take most of the attacks head on with your shield. While this is a good tactic, it will wear you down. It's be easier to dodge to the side then take all the force. It will also help if you need to fight a long fight that lasts more then one day." Penny informed with a smile.

The group nodded.

"wow. I take back what I said before, you can help us any time you want." Weiss commented, truly regretting insulting her before. Penny nodded and _observed_ what normal teenager do. It's not creepy ok!

Amber spoke up for the first time to the teams, "I would also like to add that you all fought well without your main weapons and I am truly surprised you're this good." _Even I wasn't this good in school._ She added where only Ez could hear.

"ah, um thanks." Ruby said bashful, trying to hide her embarrassed blush by looking down.

Juane spoke up. "Not to sound rude or anything, after all Ez was the one to bring you, but, um who are you?" he asked while scratching the back of his neck.

Amber just giggled, that hadn't introduced her yet. "My names Amber, I was a professional huntress up until two months ago. I think Ez just visits me in the infirmary because I can't run away when she wants to play board games." she said.

"Not true." Ez's voice calls, "it because you can't run away and you won't put up much of a fuss when I win. These guys like playing newer games I've never heard of before."

"Same can be said about your ancient 'chess' game." Yang said.

Ez sat up straighter in her seat and crossed her arms, "it's not that ancient, Oz knows it." She says as if that's helpful anyway.

"Isn't he in his 50's?" asked Ruby.

Ez shrugged, "why would I know?"

"Because you're his friend?" Yang asked. Ez could be confusing sometimes.

"Meh," Ez said. She took a breath to continue her sentence but was interrupted by Nora's stomach growling. "You should probably go get something to eat."

The group nodded while Nora ran out the door yelling, "Last one there's a rotten egg!"

"Hey Juane!" Ez called out as he was the last to leave, "can you tell everyone I won't be joining them at lunch!"

"Sure!" he called back.

Ez turned back to Amber and Penny, "Ozpin texted me during the Pillow fight so I'm just ganna leave you here." She spun on her heal to leave and walk out of the room.

Penny glanced at Amber, "would you like some help getting to the infirmary?" She asked Amber, when she was given a nod, Penny grabbed the back of the wheelchair and walking off with her.

* * *

The elevator doors opened, "you said there will be someone I would like to meet?" Ez asked, it was more of a statement then a question.

"Ah, Ez." Ozpin said in his normal voice, "yes, he will be arriving shortly." He turned around from the window he was facing, watching the Atlas ships docking.

"Cool…" Ez mumbled before plonking herself down on the couch that was_ still_ in his office. Seriously, when was one of the teachers going to remove it? Glynda sighed as she watched the older child play on her scroll. What a waste of time.

The elevator doors opened a second time in the last five minutes and out came a man in a formal looking outfit with a metal plate above his right eye. He was wearing a white over coat and a grey undercoat, a red tie expertly folded under it all. Grey hairs ran from his ears to behind his neck letting a clue to his real age out.

"Ozpin!" Ironwood exclaims cordially.

Ozpin stands at attention, like one of those soldiers you hear about from Atlas, before responding, "Hello, General."

"Please, drop the formalities." Ironwood says happily. Ozpin steps forward and they shake hands, a strong grip from both. "It's been too long." He notices the headmistress behind Ozpin, "and Glynda! It's certainly been too long since we last met." He teased.

The strict teacher rolls her eyes, "oh, James." She says, trying to be nice and failing horribly. She looks at Ozpin, dropping all formalities, "I'll be outside." Ozpin nodded.

When she was out of earshot ironwood responds, "Well she hasn't changed a bit." All traces of teasing disappearing from his voice.

As Ozpin speaks, the elevator doors open again as Glynda leaves, "so, what in the world has brought you all the way down from Atlas? Headmasters don't typically travel with their students for the Vytal festival." The headmaster of beacon grabbed his kettle and mug and poured another cup of coffee for himself and James. Passing the mug to him, ironwood added something of his own to the mix while Ozpin went around his table to sit down.

"Well, you know how I love Vale at this time of year." The headmaster of Atlas began, "and with you hosting I thought it would be a good opportunity for us to…catch up." He said as if trying to find the words. Ozpin understood the hidden message, and Ez did too after reading his mind.

"Just saying, your plans probably going to fail." Ez pointed out from the couch. Ironwood almost jumped in surprise, he hadn't noticed the student on the blue teachers couch until now, it surprised him how someone could be undetected from _his_ gaze. He had been training all his life against sneak attacks and assassins, he was a headmaster after all.

"And who are you." He asked, trying his best to sound polite and utterly failing when she saw through it instantly.

Ez looked him in the eyes, before looking Ozpin in the eyes. "is this the person you said I might want to meet?" she asked instead of answering.

Ozpin nodded, "yes, I did hope that you and general Ironwood would get along." The general just looked at him weirdly.

"why would you want me to know one of your students, Oz?" he asked, worry and confusion growing on his face, "are you playing favorites?"

Ozpin leaned forward in his chair, interlocking his fingers and placing them on the desk. He looked very intimidating despite the kind smile he had. "Ez here," he gestured to her, "is not a…normal student. You would do well to get on her good side."

Ironwood turned side on to the headmaster, "so you are playing favorites." He stated.

Ez sighed and stood up, she wasn't very tall, only reaching his shoulders, but the way she stared down at his forced a shiver run down his spine. That hadn't happened to him in well over a decade, a very rare thing to scare the general. This student in front of his was scary, even if she didn't look like it one bit, especially not with her messy attempt at putting the school clothes on properly. It would suffice, but it could be neater.

"you know Salem. That big bad person everyone seems to be thinking about." It wasn't a question as she already knew the answer. "well, I'm older than her." she stared into his eyes and he stared back. He could see the age written only on those orbs of crimson darkness, that things they had seen and the tales it could tell. Hidden to most, their vision misguided by her smile and expressions, but the masters in the craft could tell; it was a lie to protect those around her, to protect herself and to distance herself from fear of other's death. And despite himself, he found himself believing it.

"…how…?" he asked, mind still trying to comprehend what she had just said.

"stuff happened and now I can't die." She said with a yawn. "your welcome to try, though I think the world might end if I did." She added, slouching a bit in sadness.

"Oz, is she telling the truth?" Ironwood turned to the headmaster who had a small grin on his face.

"unfortunately, she is." He confirmed, taking a sip of his coffee.

The general took a moment to take it all in. "so why do you think my plans wont work? And could you tell me how you even found out about these plans of mine?" he raised his eyebrow. He did, in fact, have some plans for the future, and he thought they were rather good.

Ez stared at him blankly, then smirked mischievously. "well, judging by Salem's thoughts on the matter, she already has counter measures for every single one of your ideas. _And_ a few you haven't even come up with yet." She answered cryptically.

He looked sternly at the seeming child-like student, "are you saying you've talked to Salem recently? Which side are you on?" he answers, resting his hand on the hilt of his gun, ready to draw it at a moment's notice.

Ez rolled her eyes. "no." she said blankly, "I'm saying I'm telepathic and can read her thoughts…and everyone else in the entire world… and yes that does include you, so I know your planning to shoot me with that tiny gun if I even seem to try anything." She said just as blankly. "to which I say, 'good luck' and 'were you paying attention before?' did you miss the whole 'I can't die' memo I was giving out?" she asked sarcastically, putting her hands on her hips.

The general stood still, glaring at the girl a little longer before sighing and taking his hand off his gun. "if you know so much, why you aren't saying anything useful?" it was true, she had just said Salem had plans, but she always has plans, so her saying that would be completely useless. Why can't she just tell them what the plans where? Why was she staying qu-

"because I don't pick sides." Ez said blankly, oh right, the whole mind reading thing. That's going to take some time to get use to. "I proffer to sit on the side lines and laugh at both sides while eating that stuff Yang showed me called popcorn. It very delicious with that, um, caramel? Sauce on top. You should try it." She recommended.

Ironwood stared quizzically into Ez's skull, trying to discover the hidden secrets within. To no effect, obviously. "why not choose a side?"

Ez tilted her head to the side, "because it got boring?" she asked rhetorically.

Ozpin took a sip of coffee, enjoying watching the conversation between his oldest friend and the older-looking friend. "if we could, can we get back on topic?" he asked, pretty sure he will be ignored.

"how could fighting for what you believe in be boring?" he asked, confused more then he had ever been in a very long time.

Ez rolled her eyes dramatically, "you mean what _you_ believe in? I lost faith in humanity billions of years ago."

General looked at her seriously, "billions?"

"Actually, no. that numbers a bit too small. Maybe, add a couple hundred zeros behind it, then it might be closer. Even if slightly." She said casually. After all, Ez was ancient.

Ozpin tried again, "can we please get back on topic here?"

"how… old, are you?" the general asked

Ez shrugged, "donno. Lost count after a ridiculously big number, it had like a million digits or something."

"…that's a very big number." Ironwood said after a long pause.

Ez placed her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes, "I know right, And the funny thing is, that's when I lost count, imagine how old I am now." She said with mock horror.

The general shock his head, "I don't even want to try." He said, shaking his hands negatively and taking a step backwards.

Ozpin started waving his hand to try and get their attention. It worked, Ez waved back and tried talking to Ironwood again, but he was apologizing to Ozpin for forgetting he was in the room with them.

Even if this was his office, and even if he had come here to speak with him specifically.

Ozpin sighed, "so, can we please continue our talk?" he asked rhetorically with a small smirk hinting from the side of his lips.

James nodded, "concerning the message Qrow sent u-"

"it's true." Ez interrupted, "and they're hilarious to play with."

The two men were silent for a good moment.

As Ironwood took a breath to speak, he was interrupted by Ozpin, "what we can take from that, is that they are somewhere in Vale and Ez has probably met them. Don't ask her for more information because if she hasn't given it yet, we won't get anything, believe me I've tried." He said before opening a draw and grabbing three pieces of paper, "but, we do know what the people who attacked the Fall maiden look like. Commit these to memory and keep your eye out. They could be hiding anywhere in Vale." Ozpin said, unaware about how close there really were.

Ez kept a stoic expression through the entire exchange of words, well aware of the eye Ozpin had on her. he was trying to gain any clue he could from her. but, sadly, she noticed.

Ironwood stared at the portraits from a few moments each before handing them back to Ozpin. "I'll keep my eye out." He said before turning around and leaving, "have a nice day." He called as the elevator doors opened.

Ez was about to join him until she stopped and walked back to Ozpin's desk. "just wondering: what's this used for?" she asked tilting her head. She was holding out an object that the professor recognized immediately, he even used one himself every day. In her hand was a blue and white toothbrush. It hadn't been used in the slightest, displayed by the fact that it was still in a case to protect it from germs.

Ozpin laughed a little bit before answering. "that's a toothbrush, you use it to brush your teeth." He said with a grin.

Ez nodded slowly, turning around and walking to the elevator. She spun around and asked another question. "why would you do that?"

Ozpin looked at the immortal above his spectacles, "unlike you, we don't have indestructible teeth and need to look after them." He said in a voice that sounds like a caring parent teaching their child.

"huh…" Ez said with a shrug, completely missing his tone of voice.

She entered the elevator and pondered what else humans and Faunas need to do in order to survive, other then eat, drink and sleep of course.

* * *

"Alright Blake! Your turn!" yang called out cheerfully, she _was_ winning right now. after they had lunch, the two teams went to the library to play a board game.

The cat Faunas flinched in surprise at being addressed. Yes, she was sitting at a table with her team playing a game. Yes, this was supposed to be a restful game after their pillow fight. And yes, she did expect to be spoken to sooner or later. But no, she had not been paying attention, proffering to be lost in her thoughts…mostly about a certain bull Faunas she wont mention. Even in her thoughts.

"oh, um, sorry. What am I doing again?" she had definitely not been playing attention for a while now and had no idea why the board was set up so differently from before…Probably yang's fault…yeah, definitely yang's fault.

Yang smiled, "your playing as Vale, trying to conquer the kingdoms of remnant!" she supplied cheerfully.

"…right." Blake said, still having no idea what to do.

Juane strolled over to the table. "hey, can I play?" he said, expecting to be welcomed with open arms.

Ruby smiled sadly at him, "sorry Juane, we already have four player."

"besides, this game requires a certain amount of tactical cunning that I seriously doubt you possess." Weiss said, annoyed at the blonde bugging them like the bug he is.

"uhm, you attacked your own Naval fleet two turns ago, Weiss." Yang informed with a blank expression.

"hey!" was Weiss's comeback.

Juane just challenged the heiress, "Bring it on, Ice Queen! Ill have you know that I've been told I'm a natural born leader." he boasted proudly.

"by who? Your Mum?" Weiss asked rhetorically.

Juane lost most of his composer, "a-and Pyrrha!" he defended

Responding to her name, Pyrrha called out, "Hello again!" with a little wave.

Juane put his hands together and practically begged to Weiss, "come on, let me play your hand for a turn."

Weiss held her cards closer to her chest, unaware that Juane was a pro at the game, "I'm not trusting you with the good citizens of Vacuo!"

Juane stopped begging, seeing as it was getting his nowhere. "why not? You've trusted us with way more important stuff before. I mean, you told us that Blake is secretly a Fa-"

He was cut off by Pyrrha's hand over his mouth, preventing him from saying something he would regret. "fun loving person! Whom we all admire and respect." she saved. Lucky Juane.

Everyone looked nervously at Blake to judge her reaction, hoping for the best. The cat Faunas glared at everyone, upset that her secret was out already, but ok with it since she knew she would have to get over her obsession with her bow someday. She just hoped it wouldn't be _today_. she glared at Weiss a little more then the others for being the one that told them before sighing and admitting defeat. There was nothing she could do about it now.

Seeing he had done something wrong, Juane tactfully retreated, "right. That. Well, ladies enjoy your battle." He said, running off to do some more homework with Pyrrha.

"sup losers." Sun called harmlessly to the group, and just in case they took it the wrong way, he held his hand in a peace sign.

"hey Sun!" ruby called back.

Sun nods and greets everyone and introducing then to Neptune at the same time. "ruby, Yang, Blake… ice queen." He said naturally.

"why does everyone keep calling me that?"

"I never got the change to formally introduce you to my old friend." Sun continued without pause.

"umm, aren't libraries for reading?" the friend asked.

Ren threw his hands in the air, "THANK YOU!" he called. So, he was listening in… huh.

"PANCAKES!" Nora yelled afterwards, probable due to her dream…whatever it may be.

Sun rolled his eyes, "Shut up. Don't be a nerd." He commented to the nerd.

The blue haired nerd took offence, "hey, hey, hey. _'intellectual' _okay? Thank you." He said, "anyways, I'm Neptune." He gave the group a little wave and grin.

"so, Neptune," Weiss spoke first, "where are you from?" it was more then obvious she was interested in him.

"haven." He said, approaching the heiress with one of his over-used pick-up lines, "and I don't believe I've caught your name, snow angle." He said in a flirtatious voice.

Weiss actually seemed affected by his advanced…somehow. "I'm Weiss." She seemed flattered.

"are you kidding me!" Juane yelled out from the other table, effortlessly headbutting it. He had used that name first! _Why did it work for Mr. blue hair and not me! How are we any different!_ Juane crying in his mind.

"pleasure to meet you." Neptune said, taking the blonde's rant in strides.

Sun turned to Blake, "I never took you as the board game type." He said.

Blake…still had no idea what was going on. She put her cards face down on the table and stood up, easily pushing Sun aside to leave. "right. Well I think I'm done playing actually. See you guys later." She didn't look so good, it the bags under her eyes were any indication. At her departure, only silence remained.

"women." Nora said, splitting the silence in half with a shrug of her shoulders.

"Nora, you're a woman too." Ren pointed out with a sigh.

Nora looked at him as a sudden realization hit her. she dramatically took a breath in. "EXACTLY!" as if it solved world hunger and maybe even the Grimm problem.

* * *

Ez stepped out of the slow and boring elevator. For gods' sakes, it doesn't even have any music to listen too.

She was planning to go to the library to meet up with her friends, or maybe find Penny and hand out with her, but she changed her mind when Blake left the group shrouded in negative emotions and thoughts.

Ez headed off to the dorm room where Blake was trying to distract herself with, well, anything. It didn't really work as she stared at the open book in her lap. Not reading the words or even sure what book she was holding. Probably the one that was at the top of her 'to-read' pile.

"_the white fang and I are going in on a joint business together_" Blake's memories of the dock played in her mind over and over again.

It filled her with dread for the Faunas. What could make the White Fang aid the human's they despise? Was it some sort of revolt from within? Were the White Fang turning over a new leaf and liking the humans again? if so, why were they aiding that piece of scum? What in the world could they be planning that they need the help of the humans they hate? What is going on?

Blake curled up a little more into a ball. She had to do something!

But what?

What could she possible do all by herself?

'KNOCK, KNOCK' someone knocked on the door and before Blake had a chance to answer, Ez walked right in.

It seems she still didn't understand common courtesy.

"you're supposed to wait for an answer before entering a room." Blake said with a deadpan expression.

"what if they don't answer?" Ez said calmly, grabbing Weiss's chair from her desk and sitting on it backwards, facing Blake.

"then they probably don't want you to come in or want to be alone." Blake said with a little bit of venom, which was promptly ignored.

"well that's not very nice, besides, I would charge in anyway and find out why they don't want me in their room." Ez said while gaining a cheeky grin.

Blake looked at her more seriously, "probably more of a matter of privacy and personal space at that point."

Ez looked at her dumb-folded, "what are those?" she asked.

"exactly." Blake tilted her head a little so she was looking out the window instead of the immortal who had instantaneously gotten her to think of something other then what happened on the docks…actually, now that she's thinking about it, Ez was always very good at distracting her mind with something else. First it was the history of the Faunus, then it was the pillow fight and now it was just a plain old random conversation. _How does she keep doing that?_ Blake questioned herself. None of the others had quite managed to do it as much as Ez has, it's like… it's like she could read minds or something.

Ez laughed a little under her breath, _wow, she's so close to the truth it's not funny…_ Ez commented to herself.

Unfortunately, Blake caught Ez's awkward laugh with her extraordinary second set of ears, "why did you laugh?" she said, more curious then worried. Its not like she can Actually read minds…right?

Ez looked around nervously, she could hide her emotions but that would be no fun, "I, um…. Didn't?" she asked.

Blake looked at her straight in the eye. "yes you did. I heard you." She answered, narrowing her eyes at the poor girl.

_Dammit! She's not as gullible as ruby!_ Ez mentally cursed.

Ez started whistling innocently. Blake narrowed her eyes even more…there was definitely something going on here. They held their little staring contest for a few more moments before Blake sighed.

"never mind, it's not that important." She said, Ez sighed audibly only causing Blake to grow more suspicious, "anyway, why did you come here?"

Ez smiled. "it's very obvious you haven't slept for a while and I was wondering what was up." She began, "you seemed more tired after the night at the docks and I was wondering if they were connected." She knew all this already with her stupid curse of an ability but didn't want to give Blake anymore clues in case she _actually _managed to figure it out.

But Ez doubted it, they still hadn't figured out she doesn't sleep at night…somehow, but it was a possibility.

Blake didn't answer for a bit… well, she didn't answer at all. she just thought of what she could say and everything that happened, all her worries and questions. And Ez listened evidently too it all…not that Blake knew. To her it just looked like Ez was sitting there waiting for an answer.

After a few minute of silence, Ez spoke up again. "you know what, don't tell me. tell your team, that's what they're there for." She stood up and replaced the chair in its spot, "make sure you sleep tonight, sleep is important to human and Faunas." The ageless child left the room, sparing a soft, calming smile for the black-themed teen.

Shortly after Ez left, her team came back. She tried to escape the room, but Weiss confronted her. twenty minutes later they had decided to do some infiltration and spying on the White Fang's movements.

Ez silently took her ear off the wall she had been listening through. Things were looking up for Blake, and team RWBY. And the best thing is; this promised to be entertaining.

Ez was definitely going to follow them, if only to watch.

* * *

**hey guy, hope ya didn't miss me...(cause then i'll feel bad) and i definitely hope you enjoyed this chapter. i did.**

**if you have any questions concerning this fanfiction, feel free to ask. (i just realized how to reply to review... i know, im stupid, but this is all so knew to me so give me some slack.) **

**welp...see ya in the next chaptre.**

**boi!**


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